Are you using Expressjs or something ? Please provide more information. I will assume you are making an API.

You can create a middleware that would handle all the error in your controller. Then in your controller you only need to throw or pass the error into next middleware. Example below.

error handle middleware

export function errorHandlingController(error: ErrorRequestHandler, _req: Request, res: Response, _next: NextFunction): void {
    let errorCode: number
    if (error instanceof RequestPayloadError) {
        errorCode = 400
    } else if (error instanceof UnauthorizedError) {
        errorCode = 401
    } else if (error instanceof NotFoundError) {
        errorCode = 404
    } else {
        errorCode = 500
    }
    res.status(errorCode).json(<GeneralResponse>{
        status: responseStatus.error,
        message: error.toString()
    })
}

user controller

export function getMyProfile(_req: Request, res: Response, next: NextFunction): void {
    try {
        const user = res.locals.user
        if (!user) throw new UnauthorizedError('Author id not identified')
        res.status(200).json({
            status: responseStatus.success,
            user: user
        })
    } catch (error: unknown) {
        next(error)
    }
}

In this case each function you can define custom exception. In doSomethingWithFriends only one try catch in used. Sample code below:

(async function doSomethingWithFriends() {


  async function getUser() {
    throw 'getUser'
  }

  async function getFriends() {
    throw 'getFriends'
  }

  async function getFriendsOfFriends() {
    throw 'getFriendsOfFriends'
  }

  let user, friends, friendsOfFriends = null;

  try {
    user = await getUser();
    friends = await getFriends(user);
    friendsOfFriends = await getFriendsOfFriends(friends);
  }  catch(err){
    console.log(err)
    if (err) {
      // custom return what you want
    }
  }

  return doFriendsOfFriends(friendsOfFriends);
}())

The catch phrase of Promise API can be combined with switch/if statements. Something like below (did not test it for syntax err etc.):

async function doSomethingWithFriends() {    
  let errID = 0;
  return getUser()
   .then(user => (++errID,getFriends(user)))
   .then(friends => (++errID, getFriendsOfFriends(friends)))
   .then(fof => (++errID, doFriendsOfFriends(fof)))
   .catch(err => {switch (errID) {
     case 0:
       return [401, err];
     case 1:
       return [500, err];
     ...
   }});
}