# Stop a stuck consumer from holding work forever

A consumer that can hold a message forever, bounded so a hung handler returns the work to the queue.

Category: Queues, jobs, and async work
Source: https://letsship.ai/use-cases/add-a-consumer-timeout
Published: 2026-08-25

## Goal

Add a processing timeout and a visibility window to a consumer that can hang.

## Acceptance criteria

- Processing has an explicit timeout
- The visibility window is longer than the timeout
- A hung handler releases the message rather than holding it
- A test forces a hang and asserts the message becomes available again

## What lands as proof

A forced-hang test showing the message returns to the queue rather than disappearing into a stuck worker.

## Prompt

Copy this to an agent to open the ticket:

```text
Create a Linear issue in my team and assign it to the SHIP agent.

Title: Add a timeout to the {consumer} consumer

Description: Add a processing timeout and a visibility window to a consumer that can hang.

Acceptance criteria:
- Processing has an explicit timeout
- The visibility window is longer than the timeout
- A hung handler releases the message rather than holding it
- A test forces a hang and asserts the message becomes available again

Before you create the issue, find a consumer in this repository that makes an unbounded external call and replace {consumer}.
```

## Questions

### What does the agent actually change?

The ticket is scoped to one outcome: add a processing timeout and a visibility window to a consumer that can hang. Work that serves that outcome is in scope, and anything outside it is left for a separate ticket, so the pull request stays reviewable.

### How do I know the work is done?

The pull request carries the evidence, not only the diff. Here that means a hung message returns to the queue instead of stalling the worker, so a reviewer can confirm the result without reproducing the work locally.

### How much oversight does this need?

The run stops once the plan is written. Somebody reads the approach and approves it before any code exists, which is the cheapest moment to redirect the work.