When does a static route without "use cache" get re-rendered?

[dninomiya]

I assumed that a route without "use cache" would render only at build time,
but based on my observation, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

After deploying a static page without "use cache", I noticed that console.log runs again if I revisit the page after some time.
Sometimes it logs three times on three consecutive refreshes, and then stops logging for a while —
so it doesn’t look like it’s fully dynamic either.

Could someone clarify when such a route is re-rendered (or revalidated)?
Is there some internal caching or time-based revalidation happening automatically for routes that don’t use "use cache"?

export default function Page() {
  console.log("static page rendered");

  return <p>Static Page</p>;
}

[icyJoseph]

Is that all there's to the route? And Cache Components enabled right? Where/how's this deployed?

[dninomiya]

@icyJoseph

Thank you for your support!

Here’s what I did:

1. Set up a new environment with the latest version of Next.js.
2. Added console.log statements to both layout.tsx and page.tsx, then deployed to Vercel.

After waiting for a while and reloading the page, the console.log outputs appeared in the Vercel logs.

I also created a test page that uses faker, and after leaving it for a few minutes and refreshing, the displayed name sometimes changes — though not always, and I haven’t figured out the exact pattern yet.

• I haven't measured it precisely, but if you wait approximately 15 to 30 minutes before reloading, the logs will start flowing again.
• No new deployments were made during the period when multiple console.log outputs were appearing.

demo
https://use-cache-static-demo.vercel.app/ <- with faker for debug
https://use-cache-static-demo.vercel.app/clean <- clean page

code
https://github.com/dninomiya/use-cache-static-demo

log

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"next": "16.0.0"

2025-10-28.10.22.36.mov