Function sleepFor

Suspends workflow execution for a durable, crash-safe duration. Unlike setTimeout, this sleep survives process restarts — the engine persists the wake-up time and resumes the workflow when the timer expires.

On replay, sleepFor returns immediately with the stored duration (no actual waiting occurs). This makes it safe for deterministic re-execution.

Duration Formats

Accepts any human-readable duration string parsed by the ms module: '5 seconds', '30s', '2 minutes', '1m', '1 hour', '2h', '1 day', '7d'.

Examples

import { Durable } from '@hotmeshio/hotmesh';

// Simple delay before continuing
export async function reminderWorkflow(userId: string): Promise<void> {
  const { sendReminder } = Durable.workflow.proxyActivities<typeof activities>();

  // Wait 24 hours (survives server restarts)
  await Durable.workflow.sleepFor('24 hours');
  await sendReminder(userId, 'Your trial expires tomorrow');

  // Wait another 6 days
  await Durable.workflow.sleepFor('6 days');
  await sendReminder(userId, 'Your trial has expired');
}
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// Exponential backoff with retry loop
export async function pollingWorkflow(resourceId: string): Promise<string> {
  const { checkStatus } = Durable.workflow.proxyActivities<typeof activities>();

  for (let attempt = 0; attempt < 10; attempt++) {
    const status = await checkStatus(resourceId);
    if (status === 'ready') return status;

    // Exponential backoff: 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, ...
    const delay = Math.pow(2, attempt);
    await Durable.workflow.sleepFor(`${delay} seconds`);
  }
  return 'timeout';
}
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// Race a sleep against an activity
const [result, _] = await Promise.all([
  activities.fetchData(id),
  Durable.workflow.sleepFor('30 seconds'),
]);
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