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triggerdotdev--trigger.dev/docs
Matt Aitken 04f9c4e1a5 fix(webapp,run-engine,core): drop the hidden debounce ceiling, fail fast on an unusable maxDelay (#4521)
Debouncing with a `delay` longer than an hour did nothing at all.

The engine applied a server-side ceiling on how long a debounced run
could be pushed back, measured from the run's `createdAt` and defaulting
to one hour. A run is only pushed back while its new execution time
stays inside that ceiling, so a `delay` at or above it could never push
anything: the waiting run was released, the trigger started its own run,
and the next trigger repeated it. A `delay: "12h"` produced one run per
trigger, each correctly delayed by 12h, with no error raised and nothing
on the run to show the debounce key had been ignored.

The ceiling is now unset by default. A debounce key with no `maxDelay`
keeps collapsing triggers for as long as they keep arriving, which is
what the docs have always described. Self-hosters who want a bound can
still set `RUN_ENGINE_MAXIMUM_DEBOUNCE_DURATION_MS`.

That has a consequence worth stating plainly, so the docs now carry a
warning for it: with no `maxDelay`, a continuously triggered key never
executes. Set `maxDelay` when the work has to happen eventually.

**Failing fast on an unusable `maxDelay`.** A caller who sets `maxDelay`
no longer than their `delay` hits exactly the dead end described above,
so that pair is now rejected at trigger time instead of silently
behaving as if no debounce were set:

```
debounce.maxDelay (1h) must be longer than debounce.delay (12h). A debounced run is only
pushed back while it stays inside maxDelay, so with these values every trigger would create
its own run.
```

An unparseable `maxDelay` is rejected too, rather than quietly falling
back to no bound at all, and so is a `delay` given as a date rather than
a duration, which could never work because the value is re-applied on
every push.

The same check runs against a configured server ceiling, so a
self-hosted deployment that sets
`RUN_ENGINE_MAXIMUM_DEBOUNCE_DURATION_MS` gets the error rather than the
silent failure this PR is about. With no `maxDelay` and no configured
ceiling, which is the default, there is nothing to conflict with and
nothing is rejected.

The docs, the `TriggerOptions` JSDoc and the engine option all now state
that the room available to push is the gap between `delay` and
`maxDelay`. The run engine suite gains the case that motivated this:
four triggers on one key with a 12h delay now collapse to a single run.
2026-08-07 07:55:35 +00:00
..

Development

Install and initial setup

pnpm install

Running the app

pnpm run dev --filter docs

View the app locally

It runs locally here: http://localhost:3050