child_process.exec{,File} don't allow setting `stdin` to `ignore` leading to hangs

[AKarbas]

Version

v22.19.0

Platform

Darwin <hostname> 25.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 25.0.0: Wed Sep 17 21:41:50 PDT 2025; root:xnu-12377.1.9~141/RELEASE_ARM64_T6030 arm64

Subsystem

child_process

What steps will reproduce the bug?

Install ripgrep (https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep) — just a example of something that breaks this way.
run the following and it will time out:

const { execFile } = await import("node:child_process")
const child = execFile("rg", ["foo"], {
  stdio: ["ignore", "pipe", "pipe"],
  timeout: 1_000
}, (error, _stdout, _stderr) => {
  console.log("After one second:", error)
})

You will see:

❯ node
Welcome to Node.js v22.19.0.
Type ".help" for more information.
> const { execFile } = await import("node:child_process")
undefined
> const child = execFile("rg", ["foo"], {
...   stdio: ["ignore", "pipe", "pipe"],
...   timeout: 1_000
... }, (error, _stdout, _stderr) => {
...   console.log("After one second:", error)
... })
undefined
> After one second: Error: Command failed: rg foo

    at genericNodeError (node:internal/errors:983:15)
    at wrappedFn (node:internal/errors:537:14)
    at ChildProcess.exithandler (node:child_process:417:12)
    at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:519:28)
    at ChildProcess.emit (node:domain:552:15)
    at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1101:16)
    at ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:304:5)
    at Process.callbackTrampoline (node:internal/async_hooks:130:17) {
  code: null,
  killed: true,
  signal: 'SIGTERM',
  cmd: 'rg foo'
}

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

With any command (like rg) that could hang on an open stdin. See: BurntSushi/ripgrep#2056

What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?

For exec and execFile to allow setting stdin to ignore — setting stdout and stderr is irrelevant as they are gathered by exec{,File} itself. The current implementation simply has no way to set this:

node/lib/child_process.js

Lines 301 to 326 in 31c6e70

	/**
	* Spawns the specified file as a shell.
	* @param {string} file
	* @param {string[]} [args]
	* @param {{
	* cwd?: string | URL;
	* env?: Record<string, string>;
	* encoding?: string;
	* timeout?: number;
	* maxBuffer?: number;
	* killSignal?: string | number;
	* uid?: number;
	* gid?: number;
	* windowsHide?: boolean;
	* windowsVerbatimArguments?: boolean;
	* shell?: boolean | string;
	* signal?: AbortSignal;
	* }} [options]
	* @param {(
	* error?: Error,
	* stdout?: string | Buffer,
	* stderr?: string | Buffer
	* ) => any} [callback]
	* @returns {ChildProcess}
	*/
	function execFile(file, args, options, callback) {

What do you see instead?

Simply hangs.

Additional information

Shout out to my teammate @Kaushal1011 who figured out why this got stuck!

[AKarbas]

I'd be happy to send a fix — is it ok to add stdin?: "overlapped" | "pipe" | "ignore" | "inherit" | Stream | number | null | undefined (source)?