The Resource Problem — Cleanup in Async

RAII in synchronous code:

{
    let file = File::open("data.txt")?;
    process(&file)?;
}  // file.drop() runs here, always, unconditionally

Reliable. Simple. The drop happens when the scope ends — no exceptions (unless you have exceptions).

The Async Complication

async fn process_data() -> Result<(), Error> {
    let conn = open_connection().await?;
    let data = fetch_data(&conn).await?;  // What if this is cancelled?
    transform_and_save(data).await?;      // Or this?
    conn.close().await?;                  // May never reach here
    Ok(())
}

Three problems:

1. Cancellation: If this async function is cancelled mid-execution, conn.close() never runs.
2. Panic: If transform_and_save panics, the async task is dropped. conn.close() is skipped.
3. Async Drop: impl Drop for Connection can only do synchronous cleanup. If closing a connection requires .await, you can’t do it in Drop.

conn.close() must be an async call, but Drop can’t be async. This is a fundamental mismatch.

The Root Cause

RAII relies on Drop running synchronously when a value goes out of scope. In async code, “going out of scope” and “running cleanup” can be decoupled — by cancellation, by executor scheduling, or by the fact that async closures are state machines that might never reach certain states.

The Solution Preview

effectful solves this with:

• Scope — a region where finalizers are registered and guaranteed to run (even on cancellation or panic)
• acquire_release — a combinator that pairs acquisition with its cleanup
• Pool — for long-lived resources that need controlled reuse

All three run cleanup effects (not just synchronous Drop), and all three run them unconditionally — success, failure, or interruption.