waiting
Utility for waiting for stuff to happen
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. Waiting is a stable, lightweight utility with no dependencies, permissive licensing, and a clear use case in testing and operational code. The dormant maintenance status is not a concern for a mature, focused library with no known vulnerabilities. Install it if you need straightforward predicate polling with timeout and backoff support.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.8 or later.
- Low friction: pure Python wheel with no runtime dependencies.
- Dormant maintenance status (716 days since last release), but the package is stable and has been in use since 2011.
License · maintenance · safety
BSD 3-Clause License (permissive) — BSD 3-Clause License is permissive; you may use, modify, and distribute this package freely in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions.
last release 2024-08-28 (716 days)
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 612,683 downloads/mo, #5,755 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
from waiting import wait, TimeoutExpired
predicate = lambda: True
result = wait(predicate, timeout_seconds=10)
# With exponential backoff
result = wait(predicate, sleep_seconds=(1, 100))
# Catch timeout
try:
wait(lambda: False, timeout_seconds=5, waiting_for="something")
except TimeoutExpired:
pass- Whether the package works correctly with flux for simulated timelines (mentioned in description but not detailed).
- Performance characteristics when polling very frequently or with many predicates aggregated via ANY/ALL.
What it is and what it does
Waiting is a small polling utility that repeatedly calls a predicate function until it returns True, handling timeouts and sleep intervals. It's designed for scenarios where you need to wait for a condition to be satisfied—such as a resource becoming available, a service becoming ready, or a background task completing—without blocking or busy-waiting.
The library supports flexible polling strategies: fixed sleep intervals, exponential backoff with configurable growth rates, and aggregation of multiple predicates using ANY and ALL constructs. It can suppress specific exceptions during polling, invoke a callback after each poll cycle, and provide descriptive timeout messages. With no runtime dependencies and pure-Python implementation, it integrates easily into test suites, integration code, and operational scripts.
Use it for
- Test fixtures that wait for a service to become ready before running test cases.
- Integration code that polls an API or resource until a desired state is reached, with exponential backoff to reduce load.
- Operational scripts that wait for multiple conditions to be satisfied before proceeding (using ANY or ALL aggregators).
- Retry logic that waits for transient failures to resolve, ignoring expected exceptions during polling.
- Monitoring or health-check loops that periodically verify a condition and log progress via on_poll callbacks.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
Waiting is a stable, lightweight utility with no dependencies, permissive licensing, and a clear use case in testing and operational code. The dormant maintenance status is not a concern for a mature, focused library with no known vulnerabilities. Install it if you need straightforward predicate polling with timeout and backoff support.
Install
waiting on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction: pure Python wheel with no runtime dependencies. Dormant maintenance status (716 days since last release), but the package is stable and has been in use since 2011.
Requires Python 3.8 or later.
License in practice
BSD 3-Clause License is permissive; you may use, modify, and distribute this package freely in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions.
Quickstart
from waiting import wait, TimeoutExpired
predicate = lambda: True
result = wait(predicate, timeout_seconds=10)
# With exponential backoff
result = wait(predicate, sleep_seconds=(1, 100))
# Catch timeout
try:
wait(lambda: False, timeout_seconds=5, waiting_for="something")
except TimeoutExpired:
passVerify before relying
- Whether the package works correctly with flux for simulated timelines (mentioned in description but not detailed).
- Performance characteristics when polling very frequently or with many predicates aggregated via ANY/ALL.
Package facts
| License | BSD 3-Clause License permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.8 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Dormant 716 days since the last release |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 612,683 / month, #5,755 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9 |
Evidence: waiting-1.5.0-py3-none-any.whl
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See also busypie · wait-for-it · waiter · polling2 · retrying · python-backoff · backoff · httsleep · wait-for2 · asynckivy