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Server-side JavaScript depth, where nearly every question eventually reduces to understanding the event loop and the type system.
15 published across 5 topics.
Phases, microtasks versus macrotasks, blocking the loop, and streams and backpressure.
An unhandled promise rejection in Node.js means a promise failed before any code observed the error. Treat it as a bug, await or return the promise chain, and make the process-level handler a last-resort alarm.
Node.js event loop blocking happens when synchronous JavaScript, JSON work, crypto, regex or CPU-heavy code occupies the shared thread. The signal is every endpoint slowing together while event loop delay rises.
Node.js event loop phases explain callback ordering across timers, poll, check, nextTick and promise microtasks. Correct answers separate macro-task phases from microtasks instead of memorising one log order.
CommonJS versus ESM, worker threads, clustering, buffers, and process and memory limits.
ESM resolves asynchronously and exposes live read-only bindings, CommonJS resolves synchronously and returns a mutable object, and interop leaks in both directions. Extra cores come from worker threads for CPU work, cluster or replicas for connections, child processes for other programs.
Node.js stream backpressure prevents a fast producer from filling memory while a slow consumer catches up. The core signal is write() returning false and the producer waiting for drain before sending more.
Not one package but its whole transitive closure, install-time scripts from every node in it, a build that now depends on the registry being reachable, and the possibility of two resolved copies of the same library whose instances fail each other's identity checks.
Middleware ordering, error handling, DI in Nest, and structuring a service beyond a single file.
ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT means an Express route tried to set status or headers after the response had already been sent. The usual cause is two response paths: missing return after res.send, async callbacks racing, or an error handler trying to respond after headers are committed.
An Express error handler is skipped when it is not registered after routes, lacks the four-argument signature, or an async error never reaches next(). Express 4 needs explicit next(err) for rejected promises; Express 5 forwards them automatically.
Middleware runs in registration order, so ordering is behaviour rather than style: the request id precedes logging, the body parser precedes anything reading the body, authentication precedes authorisation, and the error handler goes last because Express only searches forward from the failure.
Structural typing, generics, narrowing, and modelling domain constraints in the type system.
You shrink the set of values the compiler accepts: discriminated unions instead of optional-field soup, branded types so one id cannot stand in for another, and a never-typed fallback that fails the build when a variant is added. Types vanish at runtime, so input is parsed by a schema the type is inferred from.
TypeScript erases at compile time, so a type annotation on request data is an assertion about the future rather than a check. Anything crossing a boundary the compiler cannot see - a request body, a database row, a JSON file, an API response - has to be validated at run time, with the type derived from the validator.
TypeScript allows extra properties under structural typing, but excess property checking rejects extra fields on fresh object literals. Assign the same object to a variable first and the extra fields usually pass, which can leak undeclared fields into API responses.
Jest and Vitest, mocking modules, build and bundling choices, and monorepo workflows.
Substitute at the network layer or behind your own client interface, not at the HTTP library's function. Stubbing the library couples the test to how you make the call rather than to what you send, so the test keeps passing through refactors that change the request and breaks on refactors that change nothing.
Drive business logic through injected dependencies rather than module mocks, intercept at the process boundary for outbound HTTP and time, and use a real database in a container for anything where the database is the logic — SQL, constraints, transactions and migrations.
The failing test is a victim, not the cause: something earlier mutated state it shares, usually a module evaluated once, a global that was patched and not restored, or rows left in a database. Bisect the ordering to find the pair, then remove the sharing.