How to update an Azure DevOps pipeline file to specify a timeout value

Learn how to add logic into the pipeline file to avoid a default timeout on self-host Azure DevOps agent.

Recently, when using a self hosted agent in Azure DevOps, the build I was running kept timing out because it was running for longer than 60 minutes.

When reading the Microsoft documentation as of February 2020, it looks like any build on a self-hosted agent should run forever, but this is not the case.

I received this error on my self-hosted agent when running a build that took longer than 60 minutes.

To fix this, the YAML needs to get updated to specify a timeout greater than 60 or 0 which would be infinite. Here is how I added the timeout values into my YAML file. See the jobs section.

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
      - '*'
  paths:
    exclude:
      - README.md
      - CHANGELOG.md

name: $(BuildID)

variables:
  - group: key-vault-values

jobs:
  - job: my_job
    timeoutInMinutes: 120
    cancelTimeoutInMinutes: 3
    pool: 'my-self-hosted-pool'
    steps:
    - checkout: self

    - task: PowerShell@2
      inputs:
        targetType: 'filePath'
        filePath: "$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/my-script.ps1"
        arguments: "-SubscriptionId $(azure_subscription)"
      env:
        ClientID: $(ClientID)
        ClientSecret: $(Client_Secret)
        TenantId: $(TenantId)
      displayName: 'Run Script'

I left the rest of the YAML to give more context as to where to add the jobs section and how to indent the rest of the code underneath it properly. I couldn’t find many examples online, I hope this helps!