It's easy to do a quick cache using MLDBM::Sync (which uses Storable for serialization and handles locking for you). This is faster than what Mason currently uses. You could keep a "last modified" time in your cache data and stat the YAML file to make sure your cache is up to date. If the YAML file is newer than the cache, read it and write the data to cache. However, a cache won't solve the problem if you actually have to write the YAML from your program as well as read it.