does Javascript .then() function check for the promise in a web api

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Thank you for reading this.

I'm really struggling with fully understanding how async programming works in Javascript. Imagine this code:

Promise.resolve().then(randomcallback)

So in this scenario what I think would happen is the following: Firstly, in the normal call stack the Promise.resolve() function would immediately resolve a Promise object and return it. Then, the .then() function checks if the promise is resolved and if so it adds the randomcallback function to the microtask queue which when the call stack is empty gets executed and returns a new promise object. But imagine if instead of calling the .then() function on a resolved promise object, we call it on a pending object. How is the then function able to check when the Promise object is resolved? Is it constantly checking in some web api thread like some event listener (since the rest of the program can run on) for the status property to be changed to fulfilled to then pass the callback function to the microtask queue?

The same for async await, does the await keyword just contact some web api to listen when the promise gets resolved? If so does it still do that if the promise object is already resolved at the beginning (no settimeout in it) if you use:

randomunresolvedpromise.then(randomcallback)

let's say that randomunresolvedpromise gets fulfilled in 3 seconds (when callstack is empty) how is the .then function even executed (also I've looked at the source code of the library, but it's really confusing since it uses so many callback functions) since the program literally keeps running and randomresolvedpromise only gets fulfilled when the stack is empty, is the function also just waiting in some sort of web api or what?

I've literally watched a lot of videos, read a lot of articles, but they don't seem to touch what really goes on in the event loop when using Promises and async and await. It's all really confusing to me, I hope my question really makes any sense. I really appreciate any answer, thanks!

promise async-await asynchronous javascript
1 Answers

How is the then function able to check when the Promise object is resolved?

It doesn't. The then method puts the callback on the promise's list of fulfillment callbacks, and then its job is complete. Later, when the promise is fulfilled, it's that code (fulfilling the promise) that puts calls to the promise's fulfillment callbacks in the microtask queue. (You're right though that it's then that does it when the promise is already fulfilled when then is called.)

await works the same way, since await is "just" syntactic sugar for then. (That "just" skips over a lot of details, though. :-D )

Side note: You'll notice I said "fulfillment callbacks," not "resolution callbacks," and referred to the promise being fulfilled (not resolved). There's a big difference between "fulfilled" and "resolved," but unfortunately it's not well understood and people use "resolve" where they mean "fulfill" a lot. See my blog post here (which the MDN folks linked from their documentation) for the difference (and why it matters). (That said, if you say you "resolve the promise with X" and X isn't a promise or other thenable, that's basically synonymous with "fulfill the promise with X." That's not true when X is a promise or other thenable.)

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