<!-- codemore-ignore-file: core-bugs-todo-fixme -->

core-quality-empty-catch

What it catches

catch (binding) { } and catch { } with an empty body. Block comments are stripped before matching, so catch { /* TODO */ } also fires — the comment doesn't change runtime behaviour.

Why it matters

Empty catches turn every failure into a silent no-op. Network failures, write errors, unexpected nulls — all become "everything worked fine" to the caller. This is one of the highest-signal patterns for silent-data-loss bugs in production, and AI tools often insert them just to satisfy linter / type errors without thinking about the actual failure mode.

Example: failing code

try { await persist(data); }
catch (e) { }                        // MAJOR

Example: how to fix

Pick the response that matches what the catch actually means:

// (a) Log the failure with context (most common)
catch (err) {
  logger.warn({ err: sanitize(err) }, 'persist failed');
}

// (b) Rethrow with extra context
catch (err) {
  throw new Error(`persist failed for ${id}`, { cause: err });
}

// (c) Deliberate fallback — document why
catch (err) {
  // expected when the table is empty
  return defaultValue;
}

Suppression

If you truly need to swallow the error (rare):

// codemore-ignore-next-line: core-quality-empty-catch
catch { /* expected when initial state is missing */ }

References

• ESLint — no-empty