Whats with the 100,000 iteration javascript engine limit?

Summary:

I have a workflow submitting a work order print ESS that then retrieves the ESS output and then attempts to decode the base64 zip. But the javascript engine is only getting into the decoding when it hits this limit

Node HEADERMETADATA failed with error: Statement count limit of 100000 exceeded. Statements executed 100001.Line Number: 13

Question: Is this limit only in place during debug runs or will this limit also be hit once my workflow is published?

Code Snippet (add any code snippets that support your topic, if applicable):

my zip file is 1,483,086 bytes

the loop failing

for (let i = 0; i < binary.length; i++) {