Enhanced Delay (Waitify)

A flexible and feature-rich delay utility for JavaScript that goes beyond a simple timeout.

Features

• Basic delay - Simple promise-based delay
• Callback support - Execute a function after the delay
• Jitter - Add random variance to delay times
• Progress tracking - Monitor delay progress
• Pause/Resume - Pause and resume delays
• Timeout protection - Set maximum wait time
• Retry logic - Automatically retry with configurable backoff
• Cancellation - Cancel pending delays

Installation

npm install waitify

Usage

Basic Delay

const delay = require('waitify');

// Simple delay
const { promise } = delay(1000);
await promise; // Waits for 1 second

With Callback

// With callback
delay(1000, () => {
  console.log('1 second has passed!');
});

// Or using object syntax
delay(1000, {
  callback: () => console.log('1 second has passed!')
});

Progress Tracking

delay(5000, {
  onProgress: (percentage) => {
    console.log(`Progress: ${percentage}%`);
  }
});

Jitter

Add random variance to avoid thundering herd problems in distributed systems:

// 10% jitter (900-1100ms)
delay(1000, {
  jitter: 0.1
});

Pause and Resume

const delayObj = delay(10000);

// Later...
const remainingTime = delayObj.pause();
console.log(`Paused with ${remainingTime}ms remaining`);

// Resume when needed
delayObj.resume();

Retry Logic

delay(1000, {
  callback: () => {
    // This will retry if it throws an error
    makeApiCall();
  },
  maxRetries: 3,
  retryDelay: 500,
  exponentialBackoff: true,
  onRetry: (retryCount) => {
    console.log(`Attempt ${retryCount} failed, retrying...`);
  }
});

Timeout Protection

try {
  await delay(5000, {
    timeout: 2000
  }).promise;
} catch (error) {
  console.error('Delay timed out');
}

Cancellation

const { promise, cancel } = delay(10000);

// Later...
cancel();

API Reference

delay(ms, options)

Returns a DelayResult object with the following properties:

• promise - Promise that resolves when the delay completes
• cancel() - Function to cancel the delay
• pause() - Pause the delay and return remaining time
• resume() - Resume a paused delay
• retryCount - Number of retry attempts (if retries enabled)
• elapsedTime - Total elapsed time in milliseconds
• isRunning - Whether the delay is currently running

Options

• callback - Function to call after delay
• jitter - Random variance factor (0-1)
• maxRetries - Maximum retry attempts
• retryDelay - Delay between retries
• exponentialBackoff - Whether to use exponential backoff for retries
• timeout - Maximum time to wait (0 = no timeout)
• onProgress - Progress callback (receives percentage 0-100)
• onRetry - Called when a retry occurs (receives retry count)

License

Unlicense: Free to do anything with it, IDGAF!