The node:worker_threads module enables the use of threads that execute JavaScript in parallel. To access it:

import worker from 'node:worker_threads';

Workers (threads) are useful for performing CPU-intensive JavaScript operations. They do not help much with I/O-intensive work. The Node.js built-in asynchronous I/O operations are more efficient than Workers can be.

Unlike child_process or cluster, worker_threads can share memory. They do so by transferring ArrayBuffer instances or sharing SharedArrayBuffer instances.

import {
  Worker, isMainThread, parentPort, workerData,
} from 'node:worker_threads';
import { parse } from 'some-js-parsing-library';

if (isMainThread) {
  module.exports = function parseJSAsync(script) {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      const worker = new Worker(__filename, {
        workerData: script,
      });
      worker.on('message', resolve);
      worker.on('error', reject);
      worker.on('exit', (code) => {
        if (code !== 0)
          reject(new Error(`Worker stopped with exit code ${code}`));
      });
    });
  };
} else {
  const script = workerData;
  parentPort.postMessage(parse(script));
}

The above example spawns a Worker thread for each parseJSAsync() call. In practice, use a pool of Workers for these kinds of tasks. Otherwise, the overhead of creating Workers would likely exceed their benefit.

When implementing a worker pool, use the AsyncResource API to inform diagnostic tools (e.g. to provide asynchronous stack traces) about the correlation between tasks and their outcomes. See "Using AsyncResource for a Worker thread pool" in the async_hooks documentation for an example implementation.

Worker threads inherit non-process-specific options by default. Refer to Worker constructor options to know how to customize worker thread options, specifically argv and execArgv options.