Specify spec timeout

Learn how to specify a timeout for your Cypress test specs to stop tests from failing due to issues in spec files.

Introduction

On BrowserStack, when you run your Cypress tests, if there are issues in your spec file, the test session continues to run and eventually blocks a parallel that could be used by another spec. To avoid this issue and optimize build performance, set a spec timeout for your Cypress tests.

You can set the timeout either using the browserstack.json file or the BrowserStack Cypress CLI.

In this guide, you will learn:

• The importance of spec timeout
• Set a timeout in browserstack.json
• Set a timeout using the CLI
• Points to remember

The importance of spec timeout

BrowserStack allows all specs to run for a default duration of 30 minutes, after which your test run is forcibly stopped. If there exist any issues with any of your test spec leading to Cypress hanging, the spec would be forcibly killed by BrowserStack after the timeout duration has elapsed. You can set a spec_timeout between 1 and 120 minutes.

Set a timeout in browserstack.json

Use the spec_timeout key within run_settings option to set the timeout duration for the spec files.

For example:

{
  ...
  "run_settings": {
    ...
    "spec_timeout": 10
    ...
  }
  ...
}

{
  ...
  "run_settings": {
    ...
    "spec_timeout": "10"
    ...
  }
  ...
}

Set a timeout using the CLI

Use the --spec-timeout argument in the CLI to set a timeout as follows:

For example:

# Set a spec timeout of 10 minutes using a numeric value
browserstack-cypress run --spec-timeout 10

# Set a spec timeout of 10 minutes using a string value
browserstack-cypress run --spec-timeout "10"

Points to remember

Before you set a timeout for your spec files, note the following points:

• For any value set for the timeout apart from numeric or string value, BrowserStack sets the default timeout of 30 minutes.
• Any timeout value set using the CLI takes precedence over the values set in the browserstack.json file.