How does Promise run when .then method is not called?

Question

I create two promises, but I do not run the then method on those promises. Yet once the promise objects go out of scope, the promise code runs as if .then was called.

How is a Promise settled without a call to the .then method?

I am asking because I would like to load an array with Promise objects and then run the promises in sequence.

function promises_createThenRun() {
  const p1 = createPromise1();
  const p2 = createPromise2();

  console.log('before hello');
  alert('hello');
  console.log('after hello');
  // the two promises run at this point.  What makes them run?
}

function createPromise1() {
  let p1 = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    window.setTimeout(() => {
      console.log('timer 1');
      resolve();
    }, 2000);
  });
  return p1;
}

function createPromise2() {
  let p2 = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    window.setTimeout(() => {
      console.log('timer 2');
      resolve();
    }, 1000);
  });
  return p2;
}

Answer 1

The code inside the Promise constructor runs when the promise is created and it runs synchronously which surprises some people. So even without then() everything still runs.

new Promise(resolve => console.log("running"))

Code in the callback for the setTimeout however, doesn't run until it's called, but it too will run even without the then()

new Promise(resolve => {
  console.log("promise created")
  setTimeout(() => console.log("this runs later"), 1000)
})

Answer 2

When calling .then you just set up a "callback" which says what should happen after the promise is done. So the promise will be called, with or without declaring such callback.

Imagine the promise that calls a AJAX request. Calling .then and passing a function to it will make it run when the ajax call was finished (successfully or not as in timeout or other errors). But not calling .then will not stop the request to be run. You will simply not react to the results of the request.