How to disable caching on a route with controller in drupal 8 and drupal 9

krishna kanth, Credit to volkotech-solutions May 09

To disable cache at route level or custom page level, we have multiple ways. Check the following snippet to understand them.

- use 'no_cache' from the routing.yml file OR
- use 'max-age' from the controller method OR
- use 'page_cache_kill_switch' drupal service

Use anyone of the method above to disable cache at routing level or controller level in drupal 8 or drupal 9

practice_module.routing.yml

practice_module.practice_controller_debug:
  path: '/practice/route/debug'
  defaults:
    _controller: '\Drupal\practice_module\Controller\PracticeController::debug'
    _title: 'Debug'
  requirements:
    _permission: 'access content'
  options:
    no_cache: 'TRUE'

PracticeController.php

<?php

namespace Drupal\practice_module\Controller;

use Drupal\Core\Controller\ControllerBase;

/**
 * Class PracticeController.
 */
class PracticeController extends ControllerBase {

  /**
   * Debug.
   *
   * @return string
   *   Return Hello string.
   */
  public function debug() {
    \Drupal::service('page_cache_kill_switch')->trigger();

    $date = date('H:i:s');
    return [
      '#type' => 'markup',
      '#markup' => $this->t('Time now: '. $date),
      '#cache' => ['max-age' => 0],
    ];
  }

}