Clear directories during development

Contents

Overview of directory clearing

While you’re developing Magento components (modules, themes, and language packages), your rapidly changing environment requires you to periodically clear certain directories and caches. Otherwise, your code runs with exceptions and won’t function properly.

This topic provides guidelines on what directories to clear and when to clear them. All directories discussed in this topic are default locations. It’s possible to customize these locations but doing so is beyond the scope of this topic.

When you’re developing Magento components (modules, themes, and language packages), the following directories contain temporary or generated files you can clear periodically:

Directory Description
generated/code Contains generated code
generated/metadata Contains the compiled dependency injection configuration for all modules.
pub/static Contains js and html files for each store view.
var/cache All cacheable objects except the page cache. This directory is empty if you use a third-party cache storage such as Redis.
var/composer_home Home directory for Setup Wizard artifacts. Do not touch this directory unless you are an experienced developer familiar with the Magento plug-in system.
var/page_cache Cached pages from the full page cache mechanism. This directory is empty if you use a third-party HTTP accelerator such as Varnish.
var/view_preprocessed Contains minified templates and compiled LESS (meaning LESS, CSS, and HTML).

What directories to clear

The following table provides guidelines on what you should clear and when.

Action Directories to clear
Change a class if there is a plugin related to it generated/metadata, generated/code
A change that results in generated factories or proxies generated/metadata, generated/code
A change in di.xml generated/metadata, generated/code (also need to run the code compiler again)
Add, remove, enable, or disable modules generated/metadata, generated/code, var/cache, var/page_cache
Add or edit a layout or theme var/view_preprocessed, var/cache, var/page_cache
Change LESS or templates var/view_preprocessed, var/cache, var/page_cache, pub/static
Change *.js or *.html files pub/static
Add or edit a CMS page, cacheable block, or use the Magento Admin to change the configuration var/cache, var/page_cache

How to clear the directories

To only clear directories and not perform other actions, log in to the Magento server as the Magento file system owner and clear directories using a command like the following:

1
rm -rf <magento_root>/generated/metadata/* <magento_root>/generated/code/*

You can also use the following command-line tools clear some directories for you. These commands perform other tasks as well; consult the linked documentation for more details.

Tool name Brief description What it clears
magento setup:upgrade Update Magento database schema and data generated/metadata and generated/code
magento setup:di:compile Generates code generated/code prior to compiling
magento deploy:mode:set {mode} Switch between developer and production mode generated/metadata, generated/code, var/view_preprocessed
magento cache:clean {type} Clears the cache var/cache and var/page_cache