diff --git a/config/tasks.yaml b/config/tasks.yaml
index 6fa4a31..a308a35 100644
--- a/config/tasks.yaml
+++ b/config/tasks.yaml
@@ -81,6 +81,11 @@ tasks:
     # passes (drift gate, full-roster rescore) do not pay repeated cold-load
     # costs. The bench timed out with default eviction; see bench/README.md.
     keep_alive_s: 3600
+    # Per-request timeout budget, independent of x_priority. Long enough for
+    # warm-state 35B structured-JSON inference (p99 ~160s); short enough that
+    # genuinely stuck requests still 503. Lets bench requests run at
+    # x_priority=high (eviction power) without busting the default 60s budget.
+    budget_s: 300
     fallback:
       - qwen3-8b
       - mistral-small-3.2-24b