Chaining async await calls in Node/Express with an external time limit - node.js

Question

I'm building a Slackbot that makes a call to an Express app, which then needs to 1) fetch some other data from the Slack API, and 2) insert resulting data in my database. I think I have the flow right finally using async await, but the operation is timing out because the original call from the Slackbot needs to receive a response within some fixed time I can't control. It would be fine for my purposes to ping the bot with a response immediately, and then execute the rest of the logic asynchronously. But I'm wondering the best way to set this up.
My Express route looks like:
const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();
const knex = require('../../db/knex.js');
const slack = require('../../services/slack_helpers');
// POST api/slack/foo
router.post('/foo', async (req, res) => {
let [body, images] = await slack.grab_context(req);
knex('texts')
.insert({ body: body,
image_ids: images })
.then(text => { res.send('worked!'); }) // This sends a response back to the original Slackbot call
.catch(err => { res.send(err); })
});
module.exports = router;
And then the slack_helpers module looks like:
const { WebClient } = require('#slack/web-api');
const Slack = new WebClient(process.env.SLACKBOT_TOKEN);
async function grab_context(req) {
try {
const context = await Slack.conversations.history({ // This is the part that takes too long
channel: req.body.channel_id,
latest: req.headers['X-Slack-Request-Timestamp'],
inclusive: true,
limit: 5
});
} catch (error) {
return [error.toString(), 'error'];
}
return await parse_context(context);
};
function parse_context(context) {
var body = [];
context.messages.forEach(message => {
body.push(message.text);
});
body = body.join(' \n');
return [body, ''];
}
module.exports = {
grab_context
};
I'm still getting my head around asynchronous programming, so I may be missing something obvious. I think basically something like res.send perhaps needs to come before the grab_context call? But again, not sure the best flow here.
Update
I've also tried this pattern in the API route, but still getting a timeout:
slack.grab_context(req).then((body, images) => {
knex ...
})

Answer 1

Your timeout may not be coming from where you think. From what I see, it is coming from grab_context. Consider the following simplified version of grab_context
async function grab_context_simple() {
try {
const context = { hello: 'world' }
} catch (error) {
return [error.toString(), 'error']
}
return context
}
grab_context_simple() /* => Promise {
<rejected> ReferenceError: context is not defined
...
} */
You are trying to return context outside of the try block where it was defined, so grab_context will reject with a ReferenceError. It's very likely that this error is being swallowed at the moment, so it would seem like it is timing out.
The fix is to move a single line in grab_context
async function grab_context(req) {
try {
const context = await Slack.conversations.history({
channel: req.body.channel_id,
latest: req.headers['X-Slack-Request-Timestamp'],
inclusive: true,
limit: 5
});
return await parse_context(context); // <- moved this
} catch (error) {
return [error.toString(), 'error'];
}
};
I'm wondering the best way to set this up.
You could add a higher level try/catch block to handle errors that arise from the /foo route. You could also improve readability by staying consistent between async/await and promise chains. Below is how you could use async/await with knex, as well as the aforementioned try/catch block
const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();
const knex = require('../../db/knex.js');
const slack = require('../../services/slack_helpers');
const insertInto = table => payload => knex(table).insert(payload)
const onFooRequest = async (req, res) => {
try {
let [body, images] = await slack.grab_context(req);
const text = await insertInto('texts')({
body: body,
image_ids: images,
});
res.send('worked!');
} catch (err) {
res.send(err);
}
}
router.post('/foo', onFooRequest);
module.exports = router;