Executions

File-based configuration

You can add _FILE to individual variables to provide their configuration in a separate file. Refer to Keeping sensitive data in separate files for more details.

This page lists environment variables to configure workflow execution settings.

Variable	Type	Default	Description
EXECUTIONS_MODE	Enum string: regular, queue	regular	Whether executions should run directly or using queue. Refer to Queue mode for more details.
EXECUTIONS_TIMEOUT	Number	-1	Sets a default timeout (in seconds) to all workflows after which n8n stops their execution. Users can override this for individual workflows up to the duration set in EXECUTIONS_TIMEOUT_MAX. Set EXECUTIONS_TIMEOUT to -1 to disable.
EXECUTIONS_TIMEOUT_MAX	Number	3600	The maximum execution time (in seconds) that users can set for an individual workflow.
N8N_AI_TIMEOUT_MAX	Number	3600000	Sets the HTTP request timeout in milliseconds for AI and LLM nodes (such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, and Ollama). This controls how long n8n waits for responses from AI services before timing out. Useful for slower local AI services or complex prompts that require longer processing time.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_SAVE_ON_ERROR	Enum string: all, none	all	Whether n8n saves execution data on error.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_SAVE_ON_SUCCESS	Enum string: all, none	all	Whether n8n saves execution data on success.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_SAVE_ON_PROGRESS	Boolean	false	Whether to save progress for each node executed (true) or not (false).
EXECUTIONS_DATA_SAVE_MANUAL_EXECUTIONS	Boolean	true	Whether to save data of executions when started manually.
N8N_EXECUTION_DATA_STORAGE_MODE	Enum string: database, filesystem, s3, azure	database	Where n8n stores execution data. The s3 and azure modes require an Enterprise license. Refer to External data storage for the related storage variables.
N8N_STORAGE_PATH	String	N8N_USER_FOLDER/storage	Base path for filesystem storage. When N8N_EXECUTION_DATA_STORAGE_MODE is filesystem, n8n stores execution data here. n8n also uses this path for filesystem binary data.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_PRUNE	Boolean	true	Whether to delete data of past executions on a rolling basis.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_MAX_AGE	Number	336	The execution age (in hours) before it's deleted.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_PRUNE_MAX_COUNT	Number	10000	Maximum number of executions to keep in the database. 0 = no limit
EXECUTIONS_DATA_HARD_DELETE_BUFFER	Number	1	How old (hours) the finished execution data has to be to get hard-deleted. By default, this buffer excludes recent executions as the user may need them while building a workflow.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_PRUNE_HARD_DELETE_INTERVAL	Number	15	How often (minutes) execution data should be hard-deleted.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_PRUNE_SOFT_DELETE_INTERVAL	Number	60	How often (minutes) execution data should be soft-deleted.
EXECUTIONS_DATA_MAX_DISPLAY_SIZE	Number	104857600	Maximum size (in bytes) of execution data that n8n loads when displaying an execution (editor, execution detail, and public API). For larger executions, n8n omits the data (shown as "too large to display") to avoid running low-resource instances out of memory. Doesn't affect retrying or resuming executions, which always load the full data. Set to 0 to disable the limit.
N8N_CONCURRENCY_PRODUCTION_LIMIT	Number	-1	Max production executions allowed to run concurrently, in both regular and scaling modes. -1 to disable in regular mode.
N8N_CONCURRENCY_EVALUATION_LIMIT	Number	License-tier default	Max test cases that can run in parallel within a single evaluation test run. When unset, the limit follows the license tier (Community/Pro: 1, Business: 3, Enterprise: 5). Setting this overrides the tier default.
N8N_WORKFLOW_AUTODEACTIVATION_ENABLED	Boolean	false	Whether workflows are automatically unpublished after repeated crashed executions.
N8N_WORKFLOW_AUTODEACTIVATION_MAX_LAST_EXECUTIONS	Number	3	Number of crashed executions before unpublishing a workflow.