missing-error-handling#

Every external interaction is a source of failure: network, disk, subprocess, parsing, third-party API. If the code assumes they always succeed, a production run will hit the first unexpected condition and crash unhelpfully.

Symptoms#

• HTTP calls without status-code checks and without timeout.
• File I/O with no handling for missing files, permission denied, or partial reads.
• Subprocess calls that ignore non-zero exit codes.
• JSON.parse / yaml.load with no handling of malformed input.
• Broad except: / catch (e) {} that swallows everything without logging.

What to do#

• For each external call, list the failure modes explicitly: timeout, non-2xx status, missing resource, malformed payload, permissions. Handle each with specific recovery or a loud failure.
• Add a timeout to every network call. No exceptions.
• When catching, catch the specific exception types you can actually recover from. Let unknown errors propagate with context.
• When swallowing is unavoidable, log the full error with context — at minimum, the operation that failed and the arguments.
• Distinguish "user-visible error" (explain, ask them to retry or adjust) from "internal error" (log with stack, fail fast). Don't leak internal errors to users.