higher-order functions and common patterns for asynchronous Javascript Node is an event-based server-side JavaScript engine. Async is a utility module which provides straight-forward, powerful functions for working with asynchronous Javascript. Although originally designed for use with Node, it can also be used directly in the browser. Async provides around 20 functions that include the usual 'functional' suspects (map, reduce, filter, forEachâ¦) as well as some common patterns for asynchronous control flow (parallel, series, waterfallâ¦). All these functions assume you follow the Node convention of providing a single callback as the last argument of your async function. This provides async for use directly in web browsers.