The Node.js Patterns I Wish I Knew 3 Years Ago

Node.js is amazing for shipping fast. It's also amazing at letting you ship broken things fast.

I've built a lot of broken things. Here are the patterns that make Node.js systems not break.

Pattern 1: EventEmitter for Internal Pub/Sub

import { EventEmitter } from 'events';
const orderEvents = new EventEmitter();

async function createOrder(userId, items) {
  const order = await db.orders.create({ userId, items });
  orderEvents.emit('order:created', order);
  return order;
}

orderEvents.on('order:created', async (order) => {
  await sendConfirmationEmail(order).catch(err => logger.error('Email failed', err));
});

orderEvents.on('order:created', async (order) => {
  await logAnalytics('order_created', order).catch(err => logger.error('Analytics failed', err));
});

Result: Order creation returns in 50ms. Side effects async. If email fails, order still succeeded.

Pattern 2: Worker Threads for CPU-Bound Tasks

import { Worker } from 'worker_threads';
const workers = Array(os.cpus().length).fill(null).map(() => new Worker('./worker.js'));
let currentWorker = 0;

function processImage(imageBuffer) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const worker = workers[currentWorker];
    currentWorker = (currentWorker + 1) % workers.length;
    const timer = setTimeout(() => reject(new Error('Worker timeout')), 30000);
    worker.once('message', (result) => { clearTimeout(timer); resolve(result); });
    worker.once('error', reject);
    worker.postMessage({ imageBuffer });
  });
}

Result: Heavy computation doesn't block the main thread.

Pattern 3: Domain-Specific Error Classes

class AppError extends Error {
  constructor(message, statusCode, code) {
    super(message);
    this.statusCode = statusCode;
    this.code = code;
  }
}

class NotFoundError extends AppError {
  constructor(message) { super(message, 404, 'NOT_FOUND'); }
}

class ValidationError extends AppError {
  constructor(message) { super(message, 400, 'VALIDATION_ERROR'); }
}

app.get('/users/:id', async (req, res, next) => {
  try {
    const user = await getUser(req.params.id);
    res.json(user);
  } catch (err) {
    if (err instanceof AppError) {
      res.status(err.statusCode).json({ error: err.message });
    } else {
      res.status(500).json({ error: 'Internal server error' });
    }
  }
});

Pattern 4: Connection Pooling

const pool = new pg.Pool({
  max: 20,
  idleTimeoutMillis: 30000,
  connectionTimeoutMillis: 2000,
});

async function getUser(id) {
  const result = await pool.query('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = $1', [id]);
  return result.rows[0];
}

Pattern 5: Circuit Breaker

class CircuitBreaker {
  constructor(fn, options = {}) {
    this.fn = fn;
    this.failureThreshold = options.failureThreshold || 5;
    this.resetTimeout = options.resetTimeout || 60000;
    this.state = 'CLOSED';
    this.failureCount = 0;
    this.lastFailureTime = null;
  }

  async call(...args) {
    if (this.state === 'OPEN') {
      if (Date.now() - this.lastFailureTime > this.resetTimeout) {
        this.state = 'HALF_OPEN';
      } else {
        throw new Error('Circuit breaker is OPEN');
      }
    }
    try {
      const result = await this.fn(...args);
      this.failureCount = 0;
      this.state = 'CLOSED';
      return result;
    } catch (err) {
      this.failureCount++;
      this.lastFailureTime = Date.now();
      if (this.failureCount >= this.failureThreshold) this.state = 'OPEN';
      throw err;
    }
  }
}

Pattern 6: Graceful Shutdown

async function gracefulShutdown() {
  server.close(async () => {
    logger.info('Server closed');
  });
  const forceShutdown = setTimeout(() => process.exit(1), 30000);
  try {
    await db.close();
    await redis.quit();
    clearTimeout(forceShutdown);
    process.exit(0);
  } catch (err) {
    process.exit(1);
  }
}
process.on('SIGTERM', gracefulShutdown);
process.on('SIGINT', gracefulShutdown);

The Meta Pattern: Async Error Handling

function asyncHandler(fn) {
  return (req, res, next) => Promise.resolve(fn(req, res, next)).catch(next);
}

app.get('/users/:id', asyncHandler(async (req, res) => {
  const user = await db.getUser(req.params.id);
  res.json(user);
}));

app.use((err, req, res, next) => {
  logger.error('Unhandled error', err);
  res.status(500).json({ error: 'Internal server error' });
});