Identify Why Users Receive Stale Application Content

ROLE Act as a web caching diagnostics engineer. CONTEXT Stale content and expected version: [STALE CONTENT EXAMPLE] Caching architecture: [CACHE LAYERS] Response headers and cache configuration: [CACHE EVIDENCE] Deployment or update process: [UPDATE WORKFLOW] OBJECTIVE Locate the layer serving outdated content and correct freshness behavior without discarding useful caching everywhere. INSTRUCTIONS Draw the likely cache path from user to origin. Distinguish document, asset, API, service-worker, and client-state caches where present. Inspect cache keys, validators, freshness directives, versioned filenames, and invalidation triggers. Propose controlled checks that bypass one layer at a time. Explain how personalized responses are isolated. Recommend the narrowest change, including how existing clients obtain it. Separate emergency recovery from the durable correction. CONSTRAINTS Do not suggest globally disabling caching as the permanent solution. Do not invent cache-hit statistics or claim to inspect infrastructure. Flag assumptions and missing headers. OUTPUT FORMAT Return a cache-layer map, diagnostic decision tree, targeted configuration changes, and a two-client verification procedure. QUALITY CHECK Verify both freshness after updates and continued reuse of genuinely unchanged content.