Timeouts

The timeout set in router is for the entire length of the call, and is passed down to the completion() call level as well.

Global Timeouts

SDK

from litellm import Router 

model_list = [{...}]

router = Router(model_list=model_list, 
                timeout=30) # raise timeout error if call takes > 30s 

print(response)

PROXY

router_settings:
    timeout: 30 # sets a 30s timeout for the entire call

Start Proxy

$ litellm --config /path/to/config.yaml

Custom Timeouts & Stream Timeouts (Per Model)

For each model, you can set timeout and stream_timeout under litellm_params:

• timeout → maximum time for the complete response.
  Use this to cap long-running completions.

• stream_timeout → maximum time to wait for the first chunk (i.e., first token) in a streaming response.
  Use this to abort “hanging” providers (e.g., Bedrock slow start) and retry another model.

SDK

from litellm import Router 
import asyncio

model_list = [{
    "model_name": "gpt-3.5-turbo",
    "litellm_params": {
        "model": "azure/chatgpt-v-2",
        "api_key": os.getenv("AZURE_API_KEY"),
        "api_version": os.getenv("AZURE_API_VERSION"),
        "api_base": os.getenv("AZURE_API_BASE"),
        "timeout": 300 # sets a 5 minute timeout
        "stream_timeout": 30 # sets a 30s timeout for streaming calls
    }
}]

# init router
router = Router(model_list=model_list, routing_strategy="least-busy")
async def router_acompletion():
    response = await router.acompletion(
        model="gpt-3.5-turbo", 
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hey, how's it going?"}]
    )
    print(response)
    return response

asyncio.run(router_acompletion())

PROXY

model_list:
  - model_name: gpt-3.5-turbo
    litellm_params:
      model: azure/gpt-turbo-small-eu
      api_base: https://my-endpoint-europe-berri-992.openai.azure.com/
      api_key: <your-key>
      timeout: 0.1                      # timeout in (seconds)
      stream_timeout: 0.01              # timeout for stream requests (seconds)
      max_retries: 5
  - model_name: gpt-3.5-turbo
    litellm_params:
      model: azure/gpt-turbo-small-ca
      api_base: https://my-endpoint-canada-berri992.openai.azure.com/
      api_key: 
      timeout: 0.1                      # timeout in (seconds)
      stream_timeout: 0.01              # timeout for stream requests (seconds)
      max_retries: 5

Start Proxy

$ litellm --config /path/to/config.yaml

Setting Dynamic Timeouts - Per Request

LiteLLM supports setting a timeout per request

Example Usage

SDK

from litellm import Router 

model_list = [{...}]
router = Router(model_list=model_list)

response = router.completion(
    model="gpt-3.5-turbo", 
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "what color is red"}],
    timeout=1
)

PROXY

Curl Request

curl --location 'http://0.0.0.0:4000/chat/completions' \
     --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     --data-raw '{
        "model": "gpt-3.5-turbo",
        "messages": [
            {"role": "user", "content": "what color is red"}
        ],
        "logit_bias": {12481: 100},
        "timeout": 1
     }'

OpenAI v1.0.0+

import openai


client = openai.OpenAI(
    api_key="anything",
    base_url="http://0.0.0.0:4000"
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
    messages=[
        {"role": "user", "content": "what color is red"}
    ],
    logit_bias={12481: 100},
    extra_body={"timeout": 1} # 👈 KEY CHANGE
)

print(response)

Testing timeout handling

To test if your retry/fallback logic can handle timeouts, you can set mock_timeout=True for testing.

This is currently only supported on /chat/completions and /completions endpoints. Please let us know if you need this for other endpoints.

curl -L -X POST 'http://0.0.0.0:4000/v1/chat/completions' \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -H 'Authorization: Bearer sk-1234' \
    --data-raw '{
        "model": "gemini/gemini-1.5-flash",
        "messages": [
        {"role": "user", "content": "hi my email is ishaan@berri.ai"}
        ],
        "mock_timeout": true # 👈 KEY CHANGE
    }'