pmarashian Cross-Platform "Run with Timeout"
Do not use timeout (GNU coreutils) when agents may run on macOS—it is not installed by default.
Options
- macOS / BSD:
(cmd &); sleep N; kill $!— run command in background, sleep N seconds, then kill the background job. - Alternative: Small Node script that spawns the command and kills it after N seconds.
When to Use
- When a task uses something like
timeout 10s npm run devand it fails on macOS. - Prefer documenting one cross-platform pattern rather than retrying with
timeoutrepeatedly.
Keep It Short
This skill should stay a few lines; the main point is "do not use timeout unless the environment is known to provide it."