Custom Exception Handling Priority Not Working as Expected

[MatheusFerreira71]

Hey everyone,

I’m currently creating custom exceptions in my AdonisJS application, but it seems like the framework isn’t handling them as described in the documentation. Every time I throw a custom exception, the global Handler.ts::handle method is triggered instead of the handle() method inside my custom exception class.

According to the documentation:
👉 https://v5-docs.adonisjs.com/guides/exception-handling#custom-exceptions
…you should be able to define a handle() method inside your exception, and Adonis will delegate the response rendering to it.

While investigating the issue, I found this discussion:
🔗 #718 (comment)

And to make it work properly, I had to apply the workaround mentioned here:
🔧 #718 (comment)

However, based on the documentation, shouldn't the exception automatically self-handle when the handle() method is defined inside the custom class?

Here’s an example of my custom exception:

import { Exception } from '@adonisjs/core/build/standalone'
import { HttpContextContract } from '@ioc:Adonis/Core/HttpContext'

export default class ExternalServiceUnavailableException extends Exception {
  constructor(serviceName: string) {
    super(
      `The external service "${serviceName}" is currently unavailable. Please try again later.`,
      503,
      'E_EXTERNAL_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE'
    )
  }

  public async handle(error: this, { response }: HttpContextContract): Promise<void> {
    const retryAfterDate = new Date(Date.now() + 10 * 60 * 1000).toUTCString()

    response.status(error.status).header('Retry-After', retryAfterDate).send({
      success: false,
      message: error.message,
    })
  }
}

Adonis version: "@adonisjs/core": "^5.8.0"

Would love to hear if this is expected behavior or if I might be missing something here.

Thanks in advance!