Introducing Execution Timeouts

Octopus 2023.3 introduces Execution Timeouts, a feature that allows users to set time limits on individual steps within deployment processes to automatically cancel long-running or hanging actions, thus improving the success rate of deployments. This feature is particularly useful for processes like Azure FTP connections and CloudFormation updates, which can last indefinitely without intervention. Execution Timeouts are configured in minutes and can be enabled by setting the ActionExecutionTimeOutFeatureToggle environment variable to true, with the option to manually configure them through the step UI or using Octopus variables. However, Execution Timeouts cannot be set as a default for all steps and are not applicable to certain steps such as Send an Email, Manual Intervention, and Kubernetes-specific steps. Combined with Step Retries, this functionality enhances deployment automation by allowing unpredictable processes to fail early, reducing the chances of deployment failure.