REPL runtime overhaul and CLI polish
Node’s REPL now runs through the inspector instead of vm, which removes --experimental-repl-await and makes top-level await always available. The CLI also got styled node --help output for color terminals, improving usability without changing plain-text behavior.
Security and correctness fixes in HTTP/2, streams, and async state
This week closed a serious http2 use-after-free during rst_stream handling and fixed a long-standing http2session.socket.destroy() rough edge by making it destroy the session safely. Streams saw multiple correctness fixes too: Readable.pipe() now recovers after one destination errors, stream iterators validate signal and reject throw() properly, and virtual read streams no longer race async iteration.
TLS, QUIC, and crypto behavior tighten up
Node added TLS certificate compression support, including for QUIC sessions, which can reduce handshake size and help under anti-amplification limits. TLS docs were expanded to describe servername and alpnProtocol, legacy _tls_common and _tls_wrap are now end-of-life, and WebCrypto now enforces the 512-byte KangarooTwelveParams.customization limit.
Memory and performance work across core hot paths
Several hot paths were optimized: EventEmitter no longer retains removed event names, once()/removeListener() got faster, WHATWG stream queues moved to a ring-buffer-backed structure, writable backpressure updates were simplified, and fs now caches compiled glob matchers. Node also fixed a timer/AsyncLocalStorage retention issue and improved VirtualReadStream, net.Socket behavior from BoundSocket, and deep equality handling for Maps with null keys.
API cleanup and compatibility updates
Legacy internal TLS modules are now treated as end-of-life, appendFile() docs were aligned with writeFile()-style input types, and node inspect gained per-probe --cond support for better conditional probing on hot paths. Bundled libffi was updated to 3.7.1 with native-addon and FFI correctness fixes, and V8 CET/x64 wasm jump-table overflow handling was corrected.
Other misc changes
Docs and test coverage were updated across crypto, TLS, streams, and fs; assorted typos and benchmark additions were also landed.