The Delay node pauses your workflow for a set amount of time before moving on to the next step. The pause happens without keeping anything running in the background — your flow simply picks back up automatically once the time is up.
Use a Delay node whenever you need to wait before continuing, such as:
Waiting a few hours before sending a follow-up email
Giving a customer time to respond before escalating
Spacing out a sequence of messages over days or weeks
Adding a short buffer before checking if something changed (e.g. an order status)
Field Required Description Step name Yes (defaults to delay) A name for this step, used to reference its result later in your flow. Must start with a letter or underscore (no spaces or special characters). Quick pick No One-click presets: 15 min, 1 hour, 6 hours, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week. Custom duration Yes A number plus a unit (seconds, minutes, hours, days, or weeks) if none of the quick picks fit your needs.
The result is stored under the Step name you chose, with two fields available:
Reference Returns {{delay.waited}} A human-readable description of how long the flow paused, e.g. "1 hour" {{delay.resumedAt}} The exact timestamp the flow resumed
(Replace delay with whatever Step name you chose.)
The wait is handled entirely by Syncaut's backend (Inngest) — nothing needs to stay open or running on your end during the pause, so delays of days or weeks are just as reliable as a delay of a few minutes.
The maximum allowed duration is capped at 8,760 units, but that cap applies to the number you type regardless of which unit you choose. In practice this means seconds and minutes delays are capped fairly low (8,760 seconds is just under 2.5 hours), while weeks allows for a delay far longer than a year. If you need a long wait, use hours, days, or weeks rather than seconds/minutes to avoid hitting the cap unexpectedly.
Duration must be a positive number — zero or negative values, or leaving the field blank, will cause the step to fail before the wait even starts.
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