phpstan: child process exceeded timeout of 300 seconds on large PR

TL;DR

Analyzing the whole change set took longer than the parallel worker is allowed to run. Make repeat runs cheap with the result cache, give workers more time, and analyze only the paths the PR touches. The timeout is per worker, so smaller chunks of work fix it without touching the code.

The error

phpstan: child process exceeded timeout of 300 seconds on large PR

Steps

1. Confirm the result cache is active

Check the phpstan config for a writable result-cache directory and confirm CI does not wipe it between runs. Without the cache, every run re-analyzes everything. Expected output: the cache directory exists and persists across runs, or you have found why it does not.

2. Raise the worker timeout

In the parallel-runner section of the phpstan config, raise the child-process timeout above the default 300 seconds. Check the docs for your phpstan version for the exact setting name, since it has moved between releases. Expected output: workers are allowed enough time for the largest analysis chunk.

3. Analyze only what the PR touches

Instead of the whole codebase, pass the changed PHP files:

phpstan analyse $(git diff --name-only origin/main...HEAD -- '*.php')

Expected output: analysis covers the PR's files in a fraction of the time.

4. Split the run by directory

If one PR still times out, run phpstan per top-level directory as separate CI jobs. Each job gets its own workers and its own timeout budget. Expected output: no single job exceeds the timeout.

5. Re-run and watch the timing

Re-run the analysis and note the duration in the log output. Expected output: the run completes inside the timeout with a normal result.

When to use

• The exact child-process timeout error
• Large PRs or monorepo-wide changes
• Analysis that got slower after enabling more rules or levels

When not to use

• phpstan config errors (the run never starts)
• Out-of-memory kills (different resource problem)
• Genuine analysis findings (fix the code)

Tool compatibility

• phpstan 1.x and 2.x (parallel runner built in)
• PHP 7.4 and later
• GitHub Actions and other CI runners

Variant phrasings

phpstan timeout on large pull request

Same fix. Cache, timeout, and narrower scope.

phpstan parallel worker timeout

The timeout applies per child process. Raising it or shrinking the work per worker both help.

phpstan slow in CI but fast locally

Local runs benefit from a warm result cache. Make CI's cache persist the same way.

Why it happens

phpstan parallelizes analysis across worker processes, each with a maximum runtime. A large change set gives some workers more files than they can finish in 300 seconds, especially on cold caches. The worker is killed and the run fails with the timeout error.

Edge cases

• Cold caches on the first run of a branch: expect the first analysis to be the slowest. Warm it on the default branch.
• The timeout setting name differs across phpstan versions. Verify against the installed version's docs rather than copying a blog snippet.
• Analyzing only changed files can miss cross-file issues. Keep a scheduled full run for the whole codebase.
• Memory limits can masquerade as timeouts when workers thrash. Check memory usage if raising the timeout does not help.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Kalf293q09IHRAe5rAEv2A

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_Kalf293q09IHRAe5rAEv2A

Thread query: phpstan: child process exceeded timeout of 300 seconds on large PR

TL;DR: Analyzing the whole change set took longer than the parallel worker is allowed to run. Make repeat runs cheap with the result cache, give workers more time, and analyze only the paths the PR touches. The timeout is per worker, so smaller chunks of work fix it without touching the code.