Stop Writing Repetitive try/catch in Express 🚀 — Meet express-catchify

#express #node #npm #javascript

🧩 What is express-catchify?

If you’ve ever written this 👇 repeatedly:

app.get("/", async (req, res, next) => {
  try {
    const data = await getData();
    res.json(data);
  } catch (err) {
    next(err);
  }
});

You know how boring and repetitive try/catch blocks can get.

So, I built express-catchify — a lightweight (less than 1KB!) helper that automatically catches async errors in your Express routes.

⚡ Why I built it

While learning Express, I noticed almost every project had the same pattern:

A bunch of try/catch blocks everywhere
Lots of repetitive next(err) calls
Middleware getting messy

I wanted a cleaner, reusable, modern way to wrap async routes.
Something you just plug in and forget about.

🚀 How to Install

Using npm:

npm install express-catchify

Or yarn:

yarn add express-catchify

💡 How to Use

ES Module

import express from "express";
import catchify from "express-catchify";

const app = express();

app.get("/", catchify(async (req, res) => {
  const data = await getData();
  res.json(data);
}));

app.use((err, req, res, next) => {
  res.status(500).json({ message: err.message });
});

CommonJS

const express = require("express");
const catchify = require("express-catchify").default;

const app = express();

app.get("/", catchify(async (req, res) => {
  const data = await getData();
  res.json(data);
}));

app.use((err, req, res, next) => {
  res.status(500).json({ message: err.message });
});