The described technology is generally directed towards detecting and propagating changes that affect information maintained in a cache. Data may be pre-cached in advance of its actual need, however such data can change, including in various different source locations. A change monitoring/signaling service detects relevant changes and publishes change events to downstream listeners, including to a cache population service that updates pre-cache data as needed in view of such data changes. Per-user-specific data also may be pre-cached, such as when a user logs into a data service.