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readline/promises question results in unsettled top-level await when reading script from stdin #60344
Closed as not planned
Description
Version
v25.0.0 (also reproduced in v24.9.0)
Platform
Darwin Kernel Version 24.6.0: Mon Aug 11 21:16:52 PDT 2025; root:xnu-11417.140.69.701.11~1/RELEASE_ARM64_T8112 arm64
Subsystem
node:readline/promises
What steps will reproduce the bug?
Place this in test.js:
import { stdin, stdout } from "node:process";
import { createInterface } from "node:readline/promises";
const rl = createInterface({ input: stdin, output: stdout });
const answer = await rl.question("hi\n");
console.log(answer);and run it with:
cat test.js | node
the above is important. node test.js works fine.
How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?
Always.
What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?
Program does not terminate.
What do you see instead?
Program terminates with exit code 13 and prints:
hi
Warning: Detected unsettled top-level await at file:///Users/me/test/[eval1]:5
const answer = await rl.question("hi");
Additional information
This seems related, but in my case I don't hit Ctrl-C: #53497
Activity
[-]Promise readline question results in unsettled promise[/-][+]Promise readline question results in unsettled promise when reading script from stdin[/+][-]Promise readline question results in unsettled promise when reading script from stdin[/-][+]readline/promises question results in unsettled top-level await when reading script from stdin[/+]aduh95 commentedon Oct 22, 2025
Why is that the expected behavior? What do you expect instead?
mb21 commentedon Oct 22, 2025
@aduh95 Why do I expect the program to not terminate? Because the example is pretty much verbatim from https://nodejs.org/api/readline.html#readline where it says:
Again, this happens only with
cat test.js | node. So I imagine there's a bug in the stdin/eval handling somewhere.Edit: ah, or do you think this doesn't work because stdin is already used to read in the script so I cannot use it anymore from the script itself?
aduh95 commentedon Oct 22, 2025
catcloses the stdin once it has read all the files you passed to it, so to me it seems to be working as expected. To clarify,cat test.js | nodepipes the stdout ofcat test.jsinto the stdin ofnode; if you try to re-use stdin from withinnode, you would find only the script you're trying to run (which is already closed by the timenoderuns the code since it needs to parse the full source before eval).mb21 commentedon Oct 22, 2025
Ah, I'd sort of hoped I could use this to run an interactive installation wizard like
curl https://mywebsite.com/install.js | node. But seems I'll just have to usenpxthen if this is not something node's stdin handling allows. Thanks, feel free to close this then.aduh95 commentedon Oct 22, 2025
If you run
curl https://mywebsite.com/install.js | nodeand input stuff in the terminal, it's going tocurl's stdin, notnode's. There's nothing special about Node.js btw, it's just how piping works in POSIX-complient systems.fix(cli): dev-run prompt channel — stderr fallback + stdin-keyed term…