How to add a timeout step to Jenkins Pipeline

Question

When you are using a free style project you can set that after 20 minutes the build is aborted if not concluded. How is this possible with a Jenkins Multi Branch Pipeline Project?

Answer 1

You can use the timeout step:

timeout(20) {
  node {
    sh 'foo'
  }
}

If you need a different TimeUnit than MINUTES, you can supply the unit argument:

timeout(time: 20, unit: 'SECONDS') {

EDIT Aug 2018: Nowadays with the more common declarative pipelines (easily recognized by the top-level pipeline construct), timeouts can also be specified using options on different levels (per overall pipeline or per stage):

pipeline {
  options {
      timeout(time: 1, unit: 'HOURS') 
  }
  stages { .. }
  // ..
}

Still, if you want to apply a timeout to a single step in a declarative pipeline, it can be used as described above.