Dynamically update job timeouts with `buildkite-agent job update`

You can now update a job's timeout at runtime using the new buildkite-agent job update command. If a job discovers mid-run that it needs more (or less) time, it can adjust its own timeout without requiring a pipeline change.

$ buildkite-agent job update timeout 20

This sets the job's timeout to 20 minutes. You can also pipe the value from stdin:

$ echo 20 | buildkite-agent job update timeout

The command targets the current job by default (via $BUILDKITE_JOB_ID), or you can specify a job explicitly with --job <id>.

How it works

buildkite-agent job update follows the same pattern as the existing buildkite-agent step update command, but operates at the job level. The attribute and value are validated server-side, which means new attributes can be introduced in future without requiring an agent release.

Timeouts are enforced by the Buildkite server and may take up to 2 minutes to take effect after the command runs. Only command jobs can be updated, and only while they are still running.

This is useful when a job has information at runtime that wasn't available when the pipeline was defined — for example, detecting that a test suite is larger than expected and needs more time, or that it's smaller and should fail sooner to avoid tying up agent capacity unnecessarily.

For more information, see the Buildkite Agent CLI reference.