Use timeouts to avoid stuck executions

By default, the Amazon States Language doesn't specify timeouts for state machine definitions. Without an explicit timeout, Step Functions often relies solely on a response from an activity worker to know that a task is complete. If something goes wrong and the TimeoutSeconds field isn't specified for an Activity or Task state, an execution is stuck waiting for a response that will never come.

To avoid this situation, specify a reasonable timeout when you create a Task in your state machine. For example:

"ActivityState": {
  "Type": "Task",
  "Resource": "arn:aws-cn:states:us-east-1:123456789012:activity:HelloWorld",
  "TimeoutSeconds": 300,
  "HeartbeatSeconds": 60,
  "Next": "NextState"
}

For more information, see Task in the Amazon States Language documentation.