diff --git a/bin/hermit.hcl b/bin/hermit.hcl
index d77df557fa..ea022f3cac 100644
--- a/bin/hermit.hcl
+++ b/bin/hermit.hcl
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ env = {
   "FTL_ENDPOINT": "http://127.0.0.1:8892",
   "FTL_INIT_GO_REPLACE": "github.com/TBD54566975/ftl=${HERMIT_ENV}",
   "FTL_SOURCE": "${HERMIT_ENV}",
+  "FTL_STARTUP_TIMEOUT": "30s",
   "OTEL_GRPC_PORT": "4317",
   "OTEL_HTTP_PORT": "4318",
   "OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_INTERVAL": "5000",
diff --git a/frontend/cli/cmd_serve.go b/frontend/cli/cmd_serve.go
index a3574cfb9b..e1eb0ddd4a 100644
--- a/frontend/cli/cmd_serve.go
+++ b/frontend/cli/cmd_serve.go
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ type serveCommonConfig struct {
 	Provisioners        int                  `short:"p" help:"Number of provisioners to start." default:"1"`
 	Background          bool                 `help:"Run in the background." default:"false"`
 	Stop                bool                 `help:"Stop the running FTL instance. Can be used with --background to restart the server" default:"false"`
-	StartupTimeout      time.Duration        `help:"Timeout for the server to start up." default:"10s"`
+	StartupTimeout      time.Duration        `help:"Timeout for the server to start up." default:"10s" env:"FTL_STARTUP_TIMEOUT"`
 	ObservabilityConfig observability.Config `embed:"" prefix:"o11y-"`
 	DatabaseImage       string               `help:"The container image to start for the database" default:"postgres:15.8" env:"FTL_DATABASE_IMAGE" hidden:""`
 	RegistryImage       string               `help:"The container image to start for the image registry" default:"registry:2" env:"FTL_REGISTRY_IMAGE" hidden:""`