Timeout

Set a maximum run time for a stage or step. Harness terminates it if it exceeds the timeout duration.

Timeout duration sets the maximum time a stage or step is allowed to run. If it is still running when the timeout expires, Harness terminates it and marks it as Expired. The default for stages is 24h.

What you will learn

• How to set a maximum run time for a stage or step using the timeout key

• What duration formats are accepted

• How a timed-out stage is marked and how to handle timeouts using on-failure rules

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YAML

Use the timeout key on the stage:

stages:
  - name: build
    id: build
    timeout: 30m
    steps:
      - name: compile
        id: compile
        run:
          script: make build

---

Duration format

Format	Example	Equivalent
Seconds	90s	1 minute 30 seconds
Minutes	30m	30 minutes
Hours	2h	2 hours
Days	1d	24 hours
Combined	1h 30m	1 hour 30 minutes

---

Behavior

• When a stage times out, it is marked as Expired and the pipeline is stopped.

• You can configure On failure with errors: [timeout] to handle timeouts specifically, for example to retry the stage.

• Individual steps can also have their own timeouts. If a step times out before the stage timeout is reached, the step expires first.

Set timeouts conservatively. A stage with no timeout (or 24h) can hold up the pipeline for a full day if it hangs on a network call or a waiting step.

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Next steps

• Go to On failure to configure retry or abort behavior when a timeout occurs.

• Go to Pipelines overview to review the pipeline model.