Redis Reference

When to Load

Load when the project uses Redis (signal: redis, ioredis, redis-py, REDIS_URL, redis: in docker-compose, Laravel CACHE_DRIVER=redis).

CLI Connection

redis-cli -h "${REDIS_HOST:-localhost}" -p "${REDIS_PORT:-6379}" -a "$REDIS_PASSWORD"
# with TLS (Redis 6+):
redis-cli -h "$REDIS_HOST" -p "${REDIS_PORT:-6380}" --tls -a "$REDIS_PASSWORD"
# using URL:
redis-cli -u "$REDIS_URL"

Key inspection commands:

redis-cli INFO server            # version, uptime, mode
redis-cli INFO memory            # used_memory, maxmemory, fragmentation
redis-cli INFO stats             # ops/sec, hits, misses
redis-cli --latency              # rolling latency histogram
redis-cli --bigkeys              # scan for large keys (use on low-traffic periods)
redis-cli MONITOR                # real-time command stream (dev only; high overhead)

Data Structures

Type	Use when	Key commands
String	Counters, cached values, sessions, feature flags	GET, SET, INCR, SETNX, GETSET
Hash	Object fields; partial updates without serializing whole object	HGET, HSET, HMGET, HINCRBY
List	Queues (FIFO/LIFO), activity feeds, message buffers	LPUSH, RPOP, BRPOP, LRANGE, LLEN
Set	Unique membership, tags, social graph intersections	SADD, SMEMBERS, SINTER, SDIFF
Sorted Set	Leaderboards, rate-limit windows, priority queues	ZADD, ZRANGE, ZRANK, ZRANGEBYSCORE
Bitmap	Compact boolean arrays (e.g., daily active users by index)	SETBIT, GETBIT, BITCOUNT, BITOP
HyperLogLog	Cardinality estimation with ~0.81% error, fixed 12 KB	PFADD, PFCOUNT, PFMERGE
Stream	Persistent, ordered event log; consumer groups	XADD, XREAD, XGROUP CREATE, XACK

Keyspace Design

• Always prefix keys with a namespace: user:{id}:profile, session:{token}, ratelimit:{ip}:{minute}
• Use : as separator (convention); avoid spaces and special chars
• Set a TTL on every cached key — never let cache grow unboundedly
• Avoid very large keys (> 1 MB) or very large values; split or compress
• Key cardinality: user:* patterns are fine; avoid * scans in production — use SCAN with MATCH and COUNT

Persistence

Mode	Guarantees	Use when
No persistence	None (data lost on restart)	Pure cache, ephemeral queues
RDB (snapshot)	Point-in-time snapshot at intervals	Low RPO tolerance; fast restarts
AOF (append-only file)	Logs every write; fsync policy controls durability	Higher durability; larger disk use
RDB + AOF	Best of both	Production with data that must survive restarts

AOF fsync options: always (safest, slowest), everysec (default, 1 s data loss risk), no (OS decides).

Eviction Policies

Set maxmemory and maxmemory-policy in redis.conf or at runtime:

Policy	Behaviour
noeviction	Returns error when memory full (default)
allkeys-lru	Evict least recently used from all keys
volatile-lru	Evict LRU from keys with TTL only
allkeys-lfu	Evict least frequently used (Redis 4+)
volatile-ttl	Evict key with shortest TTL first

For a pure cache: use allkeys-lru or allkeys-lfu.

Clustering & High Availability

Mode	Topology	When
Standalone	Single node	Dev / low-traffic
Sentinel	1 primary + N replicas + sentinel processes	HA without sharding
Cluster	16384 hash slots across N primaries	Horizontal scale + HA

• Cluster mode does not support multi-key commands across slots unless keys share a hash tag: {user:123}:profile and {user:123}:sessions land on the same slot
• Replica lag is async; reads from replicas may be stale — use WAIT command for synchronous replication confirmation

Pub/Sub vs Streams

Feature	Pub/Sub	Streams
Message persistence	None (fire-and-forget)	Yes — messages stored in log
Consumer groups	No	Yes — each group reads independently
At-least-once delivery	No	Yes — XACK acknowledgement
Backpressure	No	Yes — MAXLEN trim

Use Streams for durable event queues; use Pub/Sub for lightweight real-time notifications only.

Common Gotchas

Gotcha	Fix
KEYS * blocks the event loop	Use SCAN with MATCH and COUNT 100
Large HGETALL on a hash with thousands of fields	Use HSCAN or restructure
No TTL on session keys → memory leak	Set TTL on every write; use OBJECT IDLETIME to audit
SETNX + EXPIRE is not atomic	Use SET key value NX EX seconds (single command)
Cluster: cross-slot multi-key operations fail	Use hash tags {...} to co-locate related keys
AOF rewrite pauses	Schedule BGREWRITEAOF during low-traffic windows