Set deadlines for predictions

You can now set a deadline to automatically cancel a prediction if it doesn’t complete within a specified duration. This is useful when you’re building real-time or interactive experiences, like a virtual try-on experience for an online clothing store. In this case, shoppers have usually moved on if an image takes more than 15 seconds to generate.

How it works

Set a deadline by including a Cancel-After header when creating a prediction. See our docs for details on the header format.

Here’s an example that sets a 1 minute deadline:

curl -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $REPLICATE_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Cancel-After: 1m" \
  -H "Prefer: wait" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d $'{
    "input": {
      "prompt": "The sun rises slowly between tall buildings. [Ground-level follow shot] Bicycle tires roll over a dew-covered street at dawn. The cyclist passes through dappled light under a bridge as the entire city gradually wakes up."
    }
  }' \
  https://api.replicate.com/v1/models/bytedance/seedance-1-pro/predictions

What happens when a deadline is reached

Replicate sets the prediction’s status to aborted if the deadline is reached before it starts running, and canceled if the deadline is reached while it’s running.

For public models, you’re only charged for predictions with a canceled status, not for aborted ones.

Deadline vs sync mode wait duration

Prediction deadlines and sync mode serve different purposes. Use prediction deadline (Cancel-After header) to control when the prediction itself should be canceled. Use sync mode (Prefer: wait header) to control how long the HTTP request stays open waiting for results.

You can also use both together. In the previous cURL example, Prefer: wait defaults to 1 min and we’ve explicitly set Cancel-After to 1 min. This means that the HTTP request will stay open for 1 minute to wait for results, after which the prediction will be canceled, even if it has not completed.

Alternatively, setting Cancel-After: 1m and Prefer: wait=10 means that the request returns after 10 seconds. If the prediction is still running, you’ll get an incomplete prediction object, and the prediction will continue to run until it completes or is canceled at the 1-minute deadline.

Read more in the docs:

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