diff --git a/cluster.config b/cluster.config
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49ee58c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cluster.config
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+params {
+    // Resource limits
+    max_memory                 = 3000.GB
+    max_cpus                   = 128
+    max_time                   = 7.d
+}
+ 
+apptainer {
+    enabled    = true
+    runOptions = "-B ${System.getenv('APPTAINER_BINDPATH') ?: '/scratch'}"
+}
+ 
+process {
+    resourceLimits = [
+        memory:  params.max_memory,
+        cpus:    params.max_cpus,
+        time:    params.max_time
+    ]
+    executor       = 'slurm'
+    clusterOptions = {
+        "--account=${System.getenv('SLURM_JOB_ACCOUNT')} --export=NONE"
+    }
+ 
+    // Only retry for specific SLURM exit codes (e.g., OOM or Timeouts)
+    errorStrategy = { task.exitStatus in [143, 137, 104, 134, 139] ? 'retry' : 'finish' }
+    maxRetries     = 3
+ 
+    cache          = 'lenient'  // Tolerates minor timestamp differences on shared filesystems
+}
+ 
+executor {
+    queueSize       = 500
+ 
+    // Job submission throttling - prevents overwhelming scheduler
+    submitRateLimit   = '3 sec'      // Max 3 jobs/sec (180 jobs/min)
+    pollInterval      = '10 sec'     // Check running jobs every 10s (reduces I/O on shared FS)
+    queueStatInterval = '2 min'      // Check queue status every 2min (reduces squeue load)
+ 
+    // SLURM optimization flags (version-dependent, gracefully ignored if unsupported)
+    queueGlobalStatus = true         // Query jobs globally, not per-partition (23.01.0+)
+    onlyJobState      = true         // Use --only-job-state for faster queries (25.12.0+, requires SLURM 24.05+)
+ 
+    // Prevents false failures when file sync is delayed across storage nodes
+    exitReadTimeout = '10 min'
+ 
+    // Job submission retry with exponential backoff
+    retry {
+        maxAttempts = 5            // Try up to 5 times before giving up
+        delay       = '5 sec'      // Delay when retrying failed job submissions
+        maxDelay    = '1 min'      // Cap exponential backoff at 60sec
+        jitter      = 0.25         // Add ±25% randomness to avoid retry storms
+    }
+}
diff --git a/launch.sh b/launch.sh
index 0d171ea..9f39f18 100644
--- a/launch.sh
+++ b/launch.sh
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ log_dir="/scratch/gencore/GENEFLOW/alpha/logs/${fcid}/pipeline"
 
 nextflow_command="nextflow \
   -log ${log_dir}/nextflow.log run /home/gencore/SCRIPTS/GENEFLOW/main.nf \
+  -c /home/gencore/SCRIPTS/GENEFLOW/cluster.config \
   -c /home/gencore/SCRIPTS/GENEFLOW/nextflow.config \
   --run_dir_path $run_dir_path \
   --trace_file_path ${log_dir}/trace.txt \