Exit Code 143 in CI: SIGTERM Graceful Termination Explained
Exit code 143 means the process received SIGTERM (128 + 15) - a graceful termination request.
A step exiting 143 was asked to shut down politely. The trigger is usually a timeout, a reclaimed spot instance, or an orchestrator scaling down.
What it means
143 = 128 + 15. SIGTERM is the default of kill; it allows cleanup. Unlike SIGKILL (137), the process had a chance to exit gracefully but did not finish its work.
Common causes
- A step
timeout-minuteselapsed. - A spot or preemptible instance was reclaimed.
- A
docker stopsent SIGTERM during the grace window.
How to fix it
If it came from preemption or a transient timeout, a retry usually succeeds - Latchkey retries these mechanical interruptions automatically. If a real per-step timeout fired, speed up the job or raise the limit.
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