diff --git a/.changeset/chrome-start-timeout.md b/.changeset/chrome-start-timeout.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..cede02a7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/chrome-start-timeout.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"@cloudhal/cli": patch
+---
+
+`cloudhal render` and the MCP `render_page` tool give a local Chrome 30 seconds to start instead of 10. A cold start on a busy machine or CI runner could exceed 10 seconds and fail with "Chrome did not start".
diff --git a/packages/cli/src/render-chrome.ts b/packages/cli/src/render-chrome.ts
index e29cfc93..f9f72bc0 100644
--- a/packages/cli/src/render-chrome.ts
+++ b/packages/cli/src/render-chrome.ts
@@ -90,7 +90,8 @@ export function chromeRenderer(
     );
     const endpoint = new Promise<string>((resolve, reject) => {
       let err = "";
-      const timer = setTimeout(() => reject(new Error("Chrome did not start")), 10_000);
+      // A cold start on a busy CI runner can take well over 10 s; a warm one is under a second.
+      const timer = setTimeout(() => reject(new Error("Chrome did not start")), 30_000);
       child.stderr?.on("data", (chunk: Buffer) => {
         err += chunk.toString();
         const m = /DevTools listening on (ws:\/\/\S+)/.exec(err);