Hey everyone! I need some clarification about Airtable automation timing restrictions. I know that individual script components have a 30-second timeout and workflows are limited to 25 total actions. But what about the overall runtime for an entire automation sequence?
Are there any hidden time boundaries that might cause issues? I’m not planning anything complex that would take more than a couple seconds to complete, but I want to make sure I understand all the potential limitations before building my workflow.
Any insights would be really helpful!
honestly, from my exp the real problem isn’t time limits - it’s memory constraints. airtable gets wonky when ur processing massive amounts of records at once, even if it’s running fast. I’ve had automations just die after processing 500+ records with zero error messages.
I’ve run plenty of automations in production and Airtable doesn’t have a hard overall timeout beyond what you already know about individual components. But here’s what you should watch for: The automation engine throttles during busy periods, so you’ll get delays between steps. I’ve seen automations with lots of API calls or heavy data processing randomly fail with vague timeout errors, even when they’re under the documented limits. Test everything with real data volumes first and keep an eye on execution logs when you deploy. If you’re dealing with big datasets or external APIs, split complex workflows into smaller automation chains instead of jamming it all into one sequence.