domains / families / devops / graceful-shutdown

graceful-shutdown

authentic

Implement graceful shutdown for servers and workers: drain connections, finish in-flight work, release resources, and exit cleanly on SIGTERM/SIGINT.

When to use

• Use when building an HTTP server that must not drop active connections during deploys
• Use when writing a background worker that processes jobs from a queue
• Use when deploying to Kubernetes, Docker, or any environment that sends SIGTERM before killing
• Use when the user says "graceful shutdown", "drain connections", "handle SIGTERM", "zero downtime", or "don't kill active requests"
• Use when implementing health check endpoints (`/healthz`, `/readyz`) for orchestrators

When not to use

• This skill does not replace environment-specific validation, testing, or expert review.
• WebSocket and SSE connections require application-level close frames before severing — `server.close()` alone won't gracefully end them.
• In clustered/multi-process setups (e.g., Node.js `cluster` module), each worker must handle signals independently.
• Some cloud platforms (Heroku, Railway) send SIGTERM with very short grace periods (10-30s) — adjust drain timeouts accordingly.

Skill page

Source