CPU and memory limits
Understand CPU and memory limits and usage for task runners
Each Airplane task runs in a container with CPU and memory limits to prevent exhausting resources on
the host. Users on self-hosted agents can adjust these limits to match the
demands of the tasks being run.
Default container limits
Default container limits
The default run container limits vary based on the agent type:
| Agent type | Default CPU limit | Default memory limit | Adjustable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airplane-hosted | 1 vCPU core | 2GB | No |
| Self-hosted on AWS ECS | 0.5 vCPU cores | 1GB | Yes (docs) |
| Self-hosted on Kubernetes | 1 vCPU core | 2GB | Yes (docs) |
In most cases, the limits are soft in the sense that going above them will not immediately cause
problems. However, staying above them for extended periods of time can lead to CPU performance
throttling and/or out of memory (OOM) errors that cause your task run to fail.
As noted in the table above, limits for self-hosted agents are adjustable. See the linked pages for
more details.
Viewing CPU and memory usage in the UI
Viewing CPU and memory usage in the UI
After a run starts, the Airplane agent will periodically poll the run container to get its current
CPU and memory usage and report these back to Airplane. This polling starts out at once-per-second
and then gradually gets less frequent as the run continues.
If there are at least two samples, then the UI will show charts of the CPU and memory versus time in
a
CPU & Memory tab at the bottom of the run details page. The CPU usage is in units of cores, and
the memory in MB:
The limits will be shown in the plots if the usage gets close to them:
Chart availability
Chart availability
CPU and memory usage charts will not be available for all task runs. The following are some cases
for which they'll be missing:
- Very short runs- if a run finishes in under ~3 seconds, then there won't be enough time to collect enough samples to create usage graphs.
- Old runs- usage stats are retained for 30 days and then cleaned out to keep the storage volumes reasonable. Usage data was also not collected for any runs before June 20, 2023.
- Workflows- CPU and memory data collection from the workflow runtime is not yet supported. However, any standard runs that are spun up by a workflow will have their usage reported in the UI.