diff --git a/apps/dashboard/src/lib/config-update.tsx b/apps/dashboard/src/lib/config-update.tsx
index 05b712e4c..1cee1c0d0 100644
--- a/apps/dashboard/src/lib/config-update.tsx
+++ b/apps/dashboard/src/lib/config-update.tsx
@@ -505,6 +505,7 @@ async function updateRemoteDevelopmentEnvironmentConfigFile(
         config_update: configUpdate,
         wait_for_sync: true,
       }),
+      signal: AbortSignal.timeout(130_000),
     });
     if (!response.ok) {
       throw new Error(`Failed to update local development environment config (${response.status}): ${await response.text()}`);
diff --git a/packages/local-config-updater/src/index.ts b/packages/local-config-updater/src/index.ts
index 00ba3815c..f880b783c 100644
--- a/packages/local-config-updater/src/index.ts
+++ b/packages/local-config-updater/src/index.ts
@@ -275,6 +275,11 @@ async function validateAgentUpdate(configFilePath: string, baselineConfig: Confi
     return;
   }
 
+  // Structural-only fallback: when jiti can't evaluate the config (e.g. missing
+  // runtime dependencies in import-with attributes), we can only verify that
+  // (a) something changed on disk and (b) the file still exports `config`.
+  // This cannot catch silently mis-applied values — an accepted tradeoff vs.
+  // blocking updates entirely for configs we can't evaluate.
   if (flattenConfigUpdate(configUpdate).length > 0 && !snapshotsChangedOnDisk(snapshots)) {
     throw new Error(`Config update validation failed for ${configFilePath}: the agent did not modify the config or any of its referenced files.`);
   }