FeathersJS service call continues despite hook error in backup verification

Answer

Yes. In FeathersJS, an error thrown synchronously in an after hook causes the service method’s promise to reject with a HookError, aborting the original call. The same outcome occurs when an asynchronous after hook returns a rejected promise (or throws after await).

Explanation

FeathersJS wraps each hook in a promise chain. If a hook throws or returns a rejected promise, the chain is broken and the error is caught by the service method wrapper, which converts it to a HookError before passing it to the application’s error handler. This behavior is version‑independent (v1.0.0 onward) and does not require special flags.

Confirmed facts

• Synchronous throw in any hook → service promise rejects with HookError.
• Asynchronous hook returning Promise.reject → same HookError rejection.
• If the hook catches the error internally and does not re‑throw, the service call proceeds as if the hook succeeded.

Steps to verify (for your backup‑verification hook)

1. Create a FeathersJS service, e.g., messages.
2. Register an after hook that throws: context => { throw new Error('backup verification failed'); }.
3. Call service.create({ text: 'hi' }) from a test or client.
4. Catch the returned promise; inspect the error – it should be an instance of feathers-errors.HookError with the original message.
5. Replace the hook with an async version returning Promise.reject(new Error('backup verification failed')) and repeat; the same HookError should appear.
6. Optional: add a try/catch inside the hook that logs and returns context; the create call will then resolve, confirming that only unhandled errors abort.