How do you handle stream errors when working with async/await in Node.js?

0-2 years experience

1. 1You need to read a file line by line using a readable stream and process each line with an async function. How would you make sure that if the async processing throws, the stream is properly closed and the error is propagated?
2. 2What happens if you forget to add a try/catch around an await inside a 'data' event handler of a stream? How would you observe the failure?

2-5 years experience

1. 1We have an API endpoint that pipes an incoming HTTP request body to a downstream service using async/await. It started failing intermittently with uncaught exceptions. Walk me through how you'd debug and fix the error handling.
2. 2Explain why using 'await stream.pipeline(...)' is preferred over manually attaching 'error' listeners, and show a code snippet handling cleanup.

5-8 years experience

1. 1Our microservice processes a high‑volume Kafka consumer stream and writes results to a database using async/await. Under load, occasional unhandled promise rejections crash the process. How would you redesign the error handling to be resilient and avoid back‑pressure issues?
2. 2Discuss trade‑offs between per‑chunk try/catch versus a global error handler when using async iterators over a Node.js readable stream in a latency‑sensitive service.

8+ years experience

1. 1We are migrating a legacy callback‑based streaming ETL pipeline to async/await across multiple teams. What architectural guidelines would you set to ensure consistent error handling, observability, and graceful degradation?
2. 2How would you design a shared library that abstracts stream error handling for both file I/O and network streams, considering versioning, testing, and cross‑team adoption?