--- title: All Your GUCs in a Row: idle_in_transaction_session_timeout description: PostgreSQL's `idle_in_transaction_session_timeout` parameter automatically kills sessions that hold open transactions without activity. The default is 0... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/all-your-gucs-in-a-row-idle-in-transaction-session-timeout-uzk5lzuwc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: All Your GUCs in a Row: idle_in_transaction_session_timeout | daily.dev og:description: PostgreSQL's `idle_in_transaction_session_timeout` parameter automatically kills sessions that hold open transactions without activity. The default is 0... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/all-your-gucs-in-a-row-idle-in-transaction-session-timeout-uzk5lzuwc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/uzK5lzUwc.png og:image:alt: All Your GUCs in a Row: idle_in_transaction_session_timeout og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # All Your GUCs in a Row: idle_in_transaction_session_timeout **[Planet PostgreSQL](https://daily.dev/sources/planet-postgresql)** · 4 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary PostgreSQL's `idle_in_transaction_session_timeout` parameter automatically kills sessions that hold open transactions without activity. The default is 0 (disabled), but leaving it that way is dangerous: idle transactions hold locks on every table they touched, block DDL operations like ALTER TABLE, and pin the xid horizon preventing vacuum from reclaiming dead tuples — leading to bloat and potential wraparound. The timer measures per-statement silence, not total transaction duration. A recommended global setting of 5 minutes catches broken application code (leaked connections from ORMs, unhandled exceptions) without affecting legitimate workloads. Per-role overrides allow tighter limits for pooled app users and looser ones for batch jobs. PostgreSQL 17's `transaction_timeout` complements this by bounding total transaction time. RDS and Aurora default to 24 hours, which acknowledges the problem but delays remediation far too long. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. 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