diff --git a/backend/app/main.py b/backend/app/main.py
index 81db6e2..0e04580 100644
--- a/backend/app/main.py
+++ b/backend/app/main.py
@@ -107,6 +107,24 @@ app.add_exception_handler(RateLimitExceeded, _rate_limit_exceeded_handler)
 
 app.add_middleware(RequestContextMiddleware)
 
+
+# ── No-cache middleware for all /api/ responses ───────────────────────────
+# Prevents Cloudflare and browser caches from storing API responses,
+# which would cause stale/empty data to be served after backend restarts.
+from starlette.middleware.base import BaseHTTPMiddleware
+from starlette.responses import Response as StarletteResponse
+
+class NoCacheAPIMiddleware(BaseHTTPMiddleware):
+    async def dispatch(self, request: Request, call_next):
+        response = await call_next(request)
+        if request.url.path.startswith("/api/"):
+            response.headers["Cache-Control"] = "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate"
+            response.headers["Pragma"] = "no-cache"
+        return response
+
+app.add_middleware(NoCacheAPIMiddleware)
+
+
 # ── Domain exception → HTTP mapping ──────────────────────────────────────
 app.add_exception_handler(DomainError, domain_exception_handler)