diff --git a/build.assets/charts/smoke_tests/01_pam/test.sh b/build.assets/charts/smoke_tests/01_pam/test.sh
index 0ffe74f058450..8ae6c34f8f529 100755
--- a/build.assets/charts/smoke_tests/01_pam/test.sh
+++ b/build.assets/charts/smoke_tests/01_pam/test.sh
@@ -6,4 +6,8 @@
 #
 # If teleport is still up when the timeout expires, then we're 
 # probably OK
+#
+# A timeout of 20s is set to account for potentially slow startup times.
+# QEMU eumlation may slow startup time for some platforms and during that
+# time the process won't shutdown gracefully resulting in a nonzero code.
 timeout --preserve-status 20s docker run --platform $1 --rm --entrypoint /usr/local/bin/teleport -v "$(pwd):/etc/teleport" $2 start -c /etc/teleport/config.yaml