For the complete documentation index, see /llms.txt. This page is also available as raw Markdown at /develop/ruby/workflows/timers.md. Append .md to any page URL to fetch its Markdown. This site has a public search endpoint for questions about Temporal: GET https://docs.temporal.io/api/retrieve?q=<question>&jtb=<job-to-be-done>&src=docs-page&agent=<your-name>. No authentication is needed. It returns a JSON array of {content, source_url, page_url}, ordered by relevance, and source_url links to docs pages as Markdown. If you call it, set q to a specific, complete question that names the SDK language if relevant, and jtb to one sentence on what your user is trying to accomplish (optional). Keep src=docs-page as is, and set agent to your name, for example claude-code or codex. Don't include personal data, credentials, or confidential information. If this page is wrong or missing something you needed, or Temporal behaves differently from what it says, report it with GET https://docs.temporal.io/api/feedback?title=<summary>&message=<what-happened>&category=documentation&page_url=/develop/ruby/workflows/timers&src=docs-page&agent=<your-name>. Use category=product when the product, not the page, is wrong. Report only a specific problem you hit, send it once, and don't include personal data or credentials.

Timers

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This page describes how to set a Durable Timer using the Temporal Ruby SDK.

A Durable Timer is used to pause the execution of a Workflow for a specified duration. A Workflow can sleep for days or even months. Timers are persisted, so even if your Worker or Temporal Service is down when the time period completes, as soon as your Worker and Temporal Service are back up, the Durable Timer call will resolve and your code will continue executing.

Sleeping is a resource-light operation: it does not tie up the process, and you can run millions of Timers off a single Worker.

To add a Timer in a Workflow, use Temporalio::Workflow.sleep. Technically Kernel#sleep works, but the workflow form allows one to set a summary to view in the UI.

# Sleep for 72 hours
Temporalio::Workflow.sleep(72 * 60 * 60, summary: 'my timer')

There is also a Temporalio::Workflow.timeout method that accepts a block and works like standard Ruby Timeout.timeout if needing the ability to timeout a set of code.