If you would like something similar to [max_execution_time](https://dev.mysql.com/blog-archive/server-side-select-statement-timeouts/) you can set the vttablet command line flag as follows: -queryserver-config-query-timeout=15. This is set in seconds.

You can also specify a query comment like select /*vt+ QUERY_TIMEOUT_MS=1000 */ ...

If you choose to set the vttablet command line flag the time you choose will set the absolute max time. The query comment can only override the timeout to a lower value.

This timeout via SQL query comments has the following limitations/caveats:

• You need to prevent your SQL client from stripping the comments before sending to the server (the MySQL CLI strips comments by default)
• You need to disable query normalization in vtgate (--normalize_queries false); to allow the comment to reach vttablet.
• It only works for SELECT statements today, this might change in the future.