Mastering Async/Await: How to Handle Timeouts and Cancellations Like a Pro

Prevent infinite waiting and keep your app responsive with these battle-tested techniques

Photo by hao wang on Unsplash

In the world of modern JavaScript development, asynchronous programming has become an integral part of building responsive and efficient applications. With the introduction of the async/await syntax, handling asynchronous operations has become more intuitive and easier to reason about.

However, as your application grows in complexity, you may encounter situations where you need to handle timeouts and cancellations to prevent your app from becoming unresponsive or stuck in an infinite waiting state.

One common scenario where timeouts are necessary is when dealing with external APIs or services that may take an unexpected amount of time to respond. Without proper timeout handling, your application could become unresponsive, leading to a frustrating user experience. Cancellation, on the other hand, allows you to gracefully exit an ongoing asynchronous operation, freeing up resources and preventing unnecessary computations.

In this article, we’ll dive into practical examples of how to handle timeouts and cancellations in async/await functions, empowering you to build more resilient and user-friendly…