Trigger.dev's Maximum Execution Time is Effectively Infinite ∞
When running background jobs in serverless environments, many developers have likely hit the wall of “execution time timeouts.” This problem is especially critical for time-consuming AI processing or large-scale data processing.
We were also considering migrating our workflow engine to avoid Vercel’s timeout limitations while developing our AI app builder Giselle. That’s where we turned our attention to Trigger.dev.
In this article, we’ll report the results of our thorough investigation into Trigger.dev’s maximum execution time. To cut to the chase, Trigger.dev’s maximum execution time is infinite.
First, checking Trigger.dev’s official site, we found strong proclamations of “No Timeouts” on their homepage and v3 announcement blog.
Reliably call AI APIs with no timeouts, automatic retrying, and tracing.
--- From Trigger.dev homepage
Trigger.dev v3: Durable Serverless functions. No timeouts.
--- From v3 Announcement blog post
While this wording is very reassuring, natural questions arise from a technical perspective: “Is it really unlimited?” “Are there any hidden constraints?”
Since we couldn’t find clear documentation about maximum execution time in the official docs, we reached out directly to their support team to get confirmation.
Subject: Question about Maximum Execution Time Limits
Dear Trigger.dev Support Team,
My name is Shige, and I’m reaching out with a question about Trigger.dev’s execution time limits.
We are developing an open-source AI app builder called Giselle (https://giselles.ai/), similar to Trigger.dev’s approach. Our project is available on GitHub at https://github.com/giselles-ai/giselle.
We are currently migrating our workflow engine from Vercel to Trigger.dev to avoid Vercel’s timeout limitations. Before proceeding further with the migration, we would like to clarify:
Does Trigger.dev have any maximum execution time limits for tasks/jobs?
We couldn’t find clear information about this in the documentation. If there are no limits and tasks can run indefinitely, that would be amazing!
If this information is documented somewhere on your official website or documentation, could you please share the URL with us? It would be very helpful for our planning.
Thank you for your time and assistance. We’re excited to be using Trigger.dev for our project!
Here’s a summary of the inquiry email I sent:
Subject: Question about Maximum Execution Time Limits
Content: “We are developing an open-source AI app builder and are considering migrating to Trigger.dev to avoid Vercel’s timeouts. Does Trigger.dev have any maximum execution time limits for tasks/jobs? If there are no limits and tasks can run indefinitely, that would be amazing. If there’s official information, please share the URL.”
After our inquiry, we received a very clear and surprising response from the Trigger.dev support team.
In summary, here’s what they said:
This response confirmed that Trigger.dev’s “No Timeouts” claim is not marketing hyperbole but a technically realized fact.
Through this investigation, we found that Trigger.dev is an extremely powerful background job execution platform that completely eliminates timeout constraints in serverless environments.
For developers struggling with timeout limitations on Vercel, AWS Lambda, and similar platforms, Trigger.dev can truly be a savior. We can now confidently proceed with migrating our project to Trigger.dev.
If you’re having trouble with long-running jobs, why not consider adopting Trigger.dev?
While Trigger.dev’s maximum execution time is infinite, you may need to consider setting a maximum execution time for your application that runs workflows using Trigger.dev.
Here’s an example of setting Trigger.dev’s maximum execution time to 6 hours in Giselle:
That’s all from the Gemba.