[build-tools] Soft-stop device run sessions at time limit

[sjchmiela]

Why

Currently, simulator sessions may end at hard 2h job run time limit (and we also override job run's "max run time seconds" to denote "max device run session run time"). This is bad because when job run exceeds its run time, it gets immediately killed and the worker cannot upload screen recordings.

How

Added max_duration_seconds param to remote-session build functions. Added duration abort controller/signal and merged it with the cancel abort signal. Whichever happens first — cancel or abort — is going to cause waiting to stop and upload artifacts and exit cleanly.

Linear: https://linear.app/expo/issue/ENG-25528/soft-stop-device-run-sessions-at-time-limit

Note: this is going to lower the max run time for device run sessions in https://github.com/expo/universe/pull/29554 cause we need to stop simulator session at 2h – (time it takes to upload stuff).

Test plan

When max_duration_seconds is not provided we do not do anything. So, we'll deploy this, add the param and see if things are ok.

[github-actions]

🤖 AI code review

Decision: Approve

The specialist reviewers reported no critical or warning findings.

No findings.

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This review is advisory — it never blocks a merge and never auto-approves.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 90.90909% with 4 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 62.48%. Comparing base (d4d9607) to head (bc2879e).
⚠️ Report is 1 commits behind head on main.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
.../src/steps/functions/startServeSimRemoteSession.ts	33.34%	2 Missing ⚠️
...c/steps/functions/startAgentDeviceRemoteSession.ts	0.00%	1 Missing ⚠️
...ld-tools/src/steps/utils/remoteDeviceRunSession.ts	97.44%	1 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main    #4117      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   62.46%   62.48%   +0.02%     
==========================================
  Files         995      995              
  Lines       44942    44972      +30     
  Branches     9444     9454      +10     
==========================================
+ Hits        28069    28096      +27     
- Misses      15426    15429       +3     
  Partials     1447     1447              

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds a configurable “soft stop” time limit to remote device-run session steps in @expo/build-tools, allowing sessions to end gracefully (returning normally) so cleanup and always() artifact upload steps can still run, instead of relying on hard job cancellation.

Changes:

• Add optional max_duration_seconds step input to agent-device, Argent, and serve-sim remote-session build functions.
• Implement a combined abort signal (external cancellation + duration deadline) and clear the scheduled timeout on exit.
• Extend unit tests for waitForDeviceRunSessionStoppedAsync to cover duration expiry, abort behavior, and timeout cleanup.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
packages/build-tools/src/steps/utils/remoteDeviceRunSession.ts	Adds max-duration-based abort behavior to stop polling/exit cleanly and clears the duration timeout in finally.
packages/build-tools/src/steps/utils/tests/remoteDeviceRunSession.test.ts	Adds timer mocking and new test cases for duration expiry and timeout cleanup.
packages/build-tools/src/steps/functions/startServeSimRemoteSession.ts	Adds max_duration_seconds input plumbing and forwards it to the session wait helper.
packages/build-tools/src/steps/functions/startArgentRemoteSession.ts	Adds max_duration_seconds input plumbing and forwards it to the session wait helper.
packages/build-tools/src/steps/functions/startAgentDeviceRemoteSession.ts	Adds max_duration_seconds input plumbing and forwards it to the session wait helper.
CHANGELOG.md	Adds a release-note entry for the soft-stop behavior.

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[github-actions]

✅ Thank you for adding the changelog entry!

[szdziedzic]

awesome

[szdziedzic]

actually one question - what would happen here if there was a queue for free tier some time in the future?

would it make sense to make request to WWW once we really start the session to ask for time until termination to always have correct value? we can set this value as time_until_termination - some_const. Does it make sense?