Process signals allow Node.js applications to respond to system events like termination requests, enabling graceful shutdowns and proper resource cleanup. As the creator of CoreUI, a widely used open-source UI library, I’ve implemented signal handling in Node.js production servers throughout my 11 years of backend development. The most reliable approach is listening for SIGTERM and SIGINT signals to perform cleanup operations before process termination. This method ensures database connections close, pending requests complete, and temporary files are removed before shutdown.