Node.js v22.19.0 documentation

Event: 'beforeExit'#

The 'beforeExit' event is emitted when Node.js empties its event loop and has no additional work to schedule. Normally, the Node.js process will exit when there is no work scheduled, but a listener registered on the 'beforeExit' event can make asynchronous calls, and thereby cause the Node.js process to continue.

The listener callback function is invoked with the value of process.exitCode passed as the only argument.

The 'beforeExit' event is not emitted for conditions causing explicit termination, such as calling process.exit() or uncaught exceptions.

The 'beforeExit' should not be used as an alternative to the 'exit' event unless the intention is to schedule additional work.

import process from 'node:process';

process.on('beforeExit', (code) => {
  console.log('Process beforeExit event with code: ', code);
});

process.on('exit', (code) => {
  console.log('Process exit event with code: ', code);
});

console.log('This message is displayed first.');

// Prints:
// This message is displayed first.
// Process beforeExit event with code: 0
// Process exit event with code: 0const process = require('node:process');

process.on('beforeExit', (code) => {
  console.log('Process beforeExit event with code: ', code);
});

process.on('exit', (code) => {
  console.log('Process exit event with code: ', code);
});

console.log('This message is displayed first.');

// Prints:
// This message is displayed first.
// Process beforeExit event with code: 0
// Process exit event with code: 0copy

Event: 'disconnect'#

If the Node.js process is spawned with an IPC channel (see the Child Process and Cluster documentation), the 'disconnect' event will be emitted when the IPC channel is closed.

Event: 'exit'#

• code <integer>

The 'exit' event is emitted when the Node.js process is about to exit as a result of either:

• The process.exit() method being called explicitly;
• The Node.js event loop no longer having any additional work to perform.

There is no way to prevent the exiting of the event loop at this point, and once all 'exit' listeners have finished running the Node.js process will terminate.

The listener callback function is invoked with the exit code specified either by the process.exitCode property, or the exitCode argument passed to the process.exit() method.

import process from 'node:process';

process.on('exit', (code) => {
  console.log(`About to exit with code: ${code}`);
});const process = require('node:process');

process.on('exit', (code) => {
  console.log(`About to exit with code: ${code}`);
});copy

Listener functions must only perform synchronous operations. The Node.js process will exit immediately after calling the 'exit' event listeners causing any additional work still queued in the event loop to be abandoned. In the following example, for instance, the timeout will never occur:

import process from 'node:process';

process.on('exit', (code) => {
  setTimeout(() => {
    console.log('This will not run');
  }, 0);
});const process = require('node:process');

process.on('exit', (code) => {
  setTimeout(() => {
    console.log('This will not run');
  }, 0);
});copy

Event: 'message'#

• message <Object> | <boolean> | <number> | <string> | <null> a parsed JSON object or a serializable primitive value.
• sendHandle <net.Server> | <net.Socket> a net.Server or net.Socket object, or undefined.

If the Node.js process is spawned with an IPC channel (see the Child Process and Cluster documentation), the 'message' event is emitted whenever a message sent by a parent process using childprocess.send() is received by the child process.

The message goes through serialization and parsing. The resulting message might not be the same as what is originally sent.

If the serialization option was set to advanced used when spawning the process, the message argument can contain data that JSON is not able to represent. See Advanced serialization for child_process for more details.

Event: 'multipleResolves'#

• type