Node.js Guardrails

These guardrails apply to all Node.js code you write, review, or modify. They exist because LLM-generated Node.js tends to repeat the same mistakes: missing node: prefixes, callback-style APIs when promise versions exist, unsafe exec() calls, sync fs operations in async contexts, and JSON.parse(JSON.stringify()) for deep copies. Following these rules produces code that's modern, secure, and idiomatic for Node.js 20+.

Imports

The node: prefix makes it unambiguous that you're importing a built-in module, not a npm package that happens to share the name. Node.js has had this prefix since v16 and it should be used everywhere.

• Always use the node: prefix for built-in modules — import fs from 'node:fs/promises', not import fs from 'fs'. This applies to every built-in: node:path, node:url, node:crypto, node:os, node:stream, node:child_process, node:util, node:events, etc.
• Use node:fs/promises — not node:fs with callbacks. The promise-based API is cleaner and composes with async/await.
• Use node:path for all path operations — never concatenate strings with /. Paths are OS-dependent and path.join() / path.resolve() handle this correctly.
• Use node:url and the URL class for URL manipulation — not string concatenation or regex.
• Use node:crypto for randomness — never Math.random() for anything security-related (tokens, IDs, secrets). crypto.randomUUID() and crypto.randomBytes() exist for this reason.

Async

Node.js is built around non-blocking I/O. Callbacks were the original API style, but modern Node.js has promise-based alternatives for everything. Using async/await makes code readable, debuggable, and composable.

• async/await everywhere — never callbacks unless forced by a legacy API that has no promise version.
• No .then() chains when async/await is available. .then() chains are harder to read, harder to debug (stack traces), and harder to compose with try/catch.
• Promise.allSettled() over Promise.all() when partial failure is acceptable — Promise.all() rejects on the first failure and you lose the results of the others.
• AbortController + AbortSignal for cancellation — not custom boolean flags like let cancelled = false. AbortSignal is the standard cancellation mechanism and integrates with fetch, streams, child processes, and timers.
• Use node:timers/promises — import { setTimeout } from 'node:timers/promises' gives you an awaitable timer directly. Don't wrap setTimeout in new Promise().

// wrong
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000));

// correct
import { setTimeout } from 'node:timers/promises';
await setTimeout(1000);

Process

• No process.exit() except in CLI entry points — in library code and most application code, throw an error or return an error value instead. process.exit() skips cleanup, kills pending I/O, and makes code untestable.
• Use process.exitCode = 1 over process.exit(1) when possible — setting the exit code lets Node.js finish pending operations before exiting naturally.
• Handle SIGINT and SIGTERM in long-running processes (servers, workers, daemons) for graceful shutdown — close connections, flush buffers, release resources.
• structuredClone() for deep copy — not JSON.parse(JSON.stringify()). The JSON trick silently drops undefined, functions, Date objects, Map, Set, RegExp, and circular references. structuredClone() handles all of these correctly.
• Use node:worker_threads for CPU-heavy work — not child_process for running JS code. Worker threads share memory (via SharedArrayBuffer) and avoid the overhead of spawning a new process.

File System

Sync fs operations block the event loop. In a server or any async context, this means every other request stalls while you wait for disk I/O. The only acceptable place for sync fs is CLI startup where nothing else is running yet.

• Always node:fs/promises — never sync fs operations (readFileSync, writeFileSync, etc.) except during CLI startup/initialization.
• Specify encoding explicitly — readFile(path, { encoding: 'utf-8' }), not readFile(path) which returns a Buffer.
• mkdir with { recursive: true } — don't check existence with existsSync first and then create. The recursive option is idempotent and avoids race conditions.
• Use node:os tmpdir() for temp files — never hardcode /tmp. macOS uses /private/var/folders/..., Windows uses %TEMP%, and containers may mount tmpfs elsewhere.

import { mkdir, readFile, writeFile } from 'node:fs/promises';
import { tmpdir } from 'node:os';
import { join } from 'node:path';

await mkdir(join(tmpdir(), 'my-app'), { recursive: true });
const content = await readFile(configPath, { encoding: 'utf-8' });

Streams

Streams are powerful but notoriously error-prone when piped manually. A leaked error handler means an unhandled rejection that crashes your process. pipeline() handles backpressure, error propagation, and cleanup for you.

• Use pipeline() from node:stream/promises — never .pipe() with manual error handling. pipeline() destroys all streams on error and returns a promise.
• Prefer node:stream/consumers (.text(), .json(), .buffer()) for consuming readable streams — these are built-in and handle encoding correctly.
• Use Readable.from() for creating streams from iterables — don't push data manually into a PassThrough stream.

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

await pipeline(
  createReadStream('input.txt'),
  createGzip(),
  createWriteStream('input.txt.gz')
);

Child Processes

Spawning a shell is a common source of injection vulnerabilities. exec() passes the command through /bin/sh, which means shell metacharacters in user input become code execution. execFile() bypasses the shell entirely.

• execFile over exec — avoid shell injection. If you need shell features (pipes, globbing), use exec explicitly and sanitize inputs, but prefer execFile by default.
• Always handle stderr — don't ignore it. At minimum, log it. Silently swallowed stderr hides errors that make debugging impossible later.
• Set timeout and maxBuffer on exec/execFile — runaway child processes can hang indefinitely or consume unbounded memory.
• Use signal option with AbortController for cleanup — this lets you cancel child processes cleanly without resorting to kill.

import { execFile } from 'node:child_process';
import { promisify } from 'node:util';

const execFileAsync = promisify(execFile);
const controller = new AbortController();

const { stdout, stderr } = await execFileAsync('git', ['status'], {
  timeout: 10_000,
  maxBuffer: 1024 * 1024,
  signal: controller.signal,
});

Versions & Compatibility

• Target Node.js 20+ (LTS) minimum unless the project specifies otherwise. Don't use Node.js 18 patterns or polyfills for APIs that landed in v20.
• Use stable APIs — not experimental — unless explicitly needed. Check the Node.js docs stability index before recommending lesser-known APIs.

package.json

• "type": "module" for ESM — all new Node.js projects should use ES modules.
• "engines" field to declare the Node.js version requirement — this gives clear errors when someone tries to run the project on an unsupported version.
• "exports" field for package entry points — not just "main". The "exports" field supports conditional exports (ESM/CJS), subpath exports, and blocks deep imports into internals.
• "packageManager" field with corepack for pnpm/yarn version pinning — this ensures everyone on the team uses the same package manager version.