In other words, there is no need for the server to transfer a representation of the target resource because the request indicates that the client, which made the request conditional, already has a valid representation; the server is therefore redirecting the client to make use of that stored representation as if it were the payload of a 200 OK response.

The server generating a 304 response MUST generate any of the following header fields that would have been sent in a 200 OK response to the same request: Cache-Control, Content-Location, Date, ETag, Expires, and Vary.

Since the goal of a 304 response is to minimize information transfer when the recipient already has one or more cached representations, a sender SHOULD NOT generate representation metadata other than the above listed fields unless said metadata exists for the purpose of guiding cache updates (e.g., Last-Modified might be useful if the response does not have an ETag field).

Requirements on a cache that receives a 304 response are defined in Section 4.3.4 of RFC7234. If the conditional request originated with an outbound client, such as a user agent with its own cache sending a conditional GET to a shared proxy, then the proxy SHOULD forward the 304 response to that client.

A 304 response cannot contain a message-body; it is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields.

• Source: RFC7232 Section 4.1