Node.js Core Standards

This skill provides best practices for utilizing native Node.js APIs safely and efficiently.

1. Streams and Memory Management

• Streaming Data: Always use streams (fs.createReadStream, pipeline) when handling files or network payloads larger than a few megabytes. Never buffer entire large files into memory using fs.readFile.
• Pipeline Utility: Always use stream/promises.pipeline to chain streams together. It properly handles error propagation and stream destruction to prevent memory leaks.

import { pipeline } from 'node:stream/promises'
import { createReadStream, createWriteStream } from 'node:fs'

await pipeline(
  createReadStream('large-file.csv'),
  processTransformStream,
  createWriteStream('output.csv')
)

2. Event Loop Blocking

• Synchronous APIs: Never use synchronous native APIs (fs.readFileSync, crypto.pbkdf2Sync) in a web server context, as they block the main event loop and freeze all other requests. Only use them during application startup or in CLI scripts.
• CPU Intensive Tasks: Offload CPU-intensive work (image processing, heavy cryptography, massive JSON parsing) to worker_threads or external processes.

3. Child Processes

• exec vs spawn: Avoid child_process.exec() for any dynamic input, as it executes in a shell and is vulnerable to command injection. Use child_process.spawn() or execFile() which bypass the shell and pass arguments directly.

import { spawn } from 'node:child_process'

// Safe: arguments are passed as an array
const child = spawn('ls', ['-lh', '/usr'])

4. Modern APIs

• Native Fetch: Use the native fetch API (Node 18+) instead of third-party libraries like axios or node-fetch unless specific interceptor functionality is required.
• Prefixes: Always use the node: prefix when importing core modules (e.g., import fs from 'node:fs'). This explicitly bypasses node_modules lookup and improves security.