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Add compat flag docs for FinalizationRegistry and WeakRef #20668

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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
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---
title: Improved Memory Efficiency for WebAssembly Workers
description: With the introduction of FinalizationRegistry in Workers Runtime, toolchains like Emscripten and wasm-bindgen can automatically reclaim unused WebAssembly heap and reduce memory leaks.
products:
- workers
date: 2025-05-05T00:00:00Z
---

[FinalizationRegistry](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/FinalizationRegistry) is now available in Workers. You can opt-in using the [`enable_weak_ref`](/workers/configuration/compatibility-flags/#enable-finalizationregistry-and-weakref) compatibility flag.

This can reduce memory leaks when using WebAssembly-based Workers, which includes [Python Workers](/workers/languages/python/) and [Rust Workers](/workers/languages/rust/). The FinalizationRegistry works by enabling toolchains such as [Emscripten](https://emscripten.org/) and [wasm-bindgen](https://rustwasm.github.io/wasm-bindgen/) to automatically free WebAssembly heap allocations. If you are using WASM and seeing Exceeded Memory errors and cannot determine a cause using [memory profiling](/workers/observability/dev-tools/memory-usage/), you may want to enable the FinalizationRegistry.

For more information see the [`enable_weak_ref`](/workers/configuration/compatibility-flags/#enable-finalizationregistry-and-weakref) compatibility flag documentation.
24 changes: 24 additions & 0 deletions src/content/compatibility-flags/js-weak-refs.md
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---
_build:
publishResources: false
render: never
list: never

name: "Enable `FinalizationRegistry` and `WeakRef`"
sort_date: "2025-05-05"
enable_date: "2025-05-05"
enable_flag: "enable_weak_ref"
disable_flag: "disable_weak_ref"
---

Enables the use of [`FinalizationRegistry`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/FinalizationRegistry) and [`WeakRef`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/WeakRef) built-ins.
* `FinalizationRegistry` allows you to register a cleanup callback that runs after an object has been garbage-collected.
* `WeakRef` creates a weak reference to an object, allowing it to be garbage-collected if no other strong references exist.

:::note[Behaviour]
`FinalizationRegistry` cleanup callbacks may execute at any point during your request lifecycle, even after your invoked handler has completed (similar to `ctx.waitUntil()`). These callbacks do not have an associated async context — you cannot perform any I/O within them, including emitting events to a tail Worker.
:::

:::caution
These APIs are fundamentally non-deterministic — the timing and execution of garbage collection are unpredictable, and you **should not rely on them for essential program logic**. Additionally, cleanup callbacks registered with `FinalizationRegistry` may **never be executed**, including but not limited to cases where garbage collection is not triggered, or your Worker gets evicted.
:::