How to Set a Job Timeout in GitHub Actions

A timeout-minutes cap stops a hung job from running to the 6-hour default and wasting minutes.

Set timeout-minutes on a job to bound the whole job, or on a step to bound just that step. The job default is 360 minutes.

Job- and step-level timeouts

The job is capped at 30 minutes; the flaky step gets a tighter 10-minute cap.

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 30
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test
        timeout-minutes: 10

Gotchas

• The default job timeout is 360 minutes (6 hours) - a hung job runs that long and bills you unless you cap it.
• A timed-out job is marked failed, not cancelled; downstream needs: jobs are skipped.
• Step-level timeout-minutes only bounds that step - set a job-level cap as a backstop.

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