Run command with timeout in github workflow

Question

I have a GitHub action that resembles the code below. I have a file that is meant to run forever but get interrupted by a user when needed be. I've tried using timeout but it does not work, and gives some weird message.

A small caveat to this, is that if the process is timed-out, I want this not to raise an error, so that the action continues and reports success. But if the python script itself fails, I want this to be reported, as running it for a while for debugging is the point of running it within the action.

name: Run file with interrupt then save results
on: 
  push:
    branches: 
      - master

jobs:
  build:
    strategy:
      matrix:
        python-version: [3.7]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Set up Python ${{ matrix.python-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-python@v1
        with:
          python-version: ${{ matrix.python-version }}
      - name: Install dependencies for ex 06
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          cd /home/runner/work/repo_name/repo_name
          pip install -r requirements.txt
      - name: Run file with timeout
        run: |
          cd /home/runner/work/repo_name/repo_name/
          echo "hi1"
          timeout 5 sleep 10
          echo "hi2"
          python RunsForever.py
          echo "hi3"
      - name: Upload results
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
        with:
          name: result
          path: /home/runner/work/repo_name/repo_name/output/

How can I have timeout working properly? The current error message is:

Run cd /home/runner/work/repo_name/repo_name/
  cd /home/runner/work/repo_name/repo_name/
  echo "hi1"
  timeout 5 sleep 10
  echo "hi2"
  python RunsForever.py
  echo "hi3"
  shell: /bin/bash -e {0}
  env:
    pythonLocation: /opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.7.8/x64
hi1
##[error]Process completed with exit code 124.

I don't understand what could be the issue. I expected the problem to be related to the timeout function hiding output from RunsForever.py, but actually timeout itself seems not to work. I've tried installing with apt-get, also to no avail.

Is there some debugging that could get this running? Is there any other method to kill a process so I effectively interrupt it after a predetermined amount of time?

Answer 1

UPDATE

Per comment I have updated the response to provide the proper way of adding timeout and still succeed when timing out while also supporting normal failure.

Basically we check for error codes 124 (timeout) and 0 (success) and make sure that we don't exit on those codes. But if we receive anything else then we exit to match what github actions normally does on failures

DEMO SUCCESS ON TIMEOUT

DEMO FAILURE ON ERROR

Code Snippet

    - name: no timeout
      run: timeout 10 python ./RunsForever.py || code=$?; if [[ $code -ne 124 && $code -ne 0 ]]; then exit $code; fi
    
    - name: timeout # We add or so that return code is not none-zero which causes pipeline to fail
      run: timeout 1 python ./RunsForever.py || code=$?; if [[ $code -ne 124 && $code -ne 0 ]]; then exit $code; fi

PREVIOUS RESPONSE

Only handled timing out but not continue to run on timeout without reporting failure. But OP wanted it to succeed on timeout as well so provided update above.

You can do this by using timeout-minutes. Using your code as an example

    - name: Run file with timeout
      timeout-minutes: 1 # Times out after 1 minute
      run: |
         cd /home/runner/work/repo_name/repo_name/
         echo "hi2"
         python RunsForever.py
         echo "hi3"

For adding timeout to the job here is the resource: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#jobsjob_idtimeout-minutes

For adding timeout for a single step here is the resource: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#jobsjob_idstepstimeout-minutes