---
description: Use ReadableStreamDefaultReader in Workers to read chunks from a ReadableStream.
title: ReadableStream DefaultReader
image: https://developers.cloudflare.com/og-docs.png
---

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# ReadableStream DefaultReader

Last updated Aug 24, 2026|Copy as Markdown|[View as Markdown](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/workers/runtime-apis/streams/readablestreamdefaultreader/index.md)|[Agent setup](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/agent-setup/)

## Background

A reader is used when you want to read from a [ReadableStream](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/workers/runtime-apis/streams/readablestream/), rather than piping its output to a [WritableStream](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/workers/runtime-apis/streams/writablestream/).

A `ReadableStreamDefaultReader` is not instantiated via its constructor. Rather, it is retrieved from a [ReadableStream](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/workers/runtime-apis/streams/readablestream/):

```js
const { readable, writable } = new TransformStream();
const reader = readable.getReader();
```

---

## Properties

* `reader.closed` : Promise

  * A promise indicating if the reader is closed. The promise is fulfilled when the reader stream closes and is rejected if there is an error in the stream.

## Methods

* `read()` : Promise

  * A promise that returns the next available chunk of data being passed through the reader queue.
* `cancel(reasonstringoptional)` : void

  * Cancels the stream. `reason` is an optional human-readable string indicating the reason for cancellation. `reason` will be passed to the underlying source’s cancel algorithm -- if this readable stream is one side of a [TransformStream](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/workers/runtime-apis/streams/transformstream/), then its cancel algorithm causes the transform’s writable side to become errored with `reason`.  
Warning  
Any data not yet read is lost.
* `releaseLock()` : void

  * Releases the lock on the readable stream. A lock cannot be released if the reader has pending read operations. A `TypeError` is thrown and the reader remains locked.

---

## Related resources

* [Streams](https://e8aee267.previews.developers.cloudflare.com/workers/runtime-apis/streams/)
* [Readable streams in the WHATWG Streams API specification ↗](https://streams.spec.whatwg.org/#rs-model)

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