workflow-orchestration-patterns

The saga pattern for distributed transactions is implemented by defining compensation logic for each workflow step, ensuring reliable rollbacks if a process fails. This approach maintains data consistency across services without relying on distributed database transactions.

Workflows provide the deterministic logic for orchestrating long-running processes and managing state, while activities handle non-deterministic operations like external API calls. Separating them ensures your workflow state remains durable and recoverable during system failures.

Durable workflows that survive system failures are designed by leveraging Temporal to persist execution state automatically. The workflow resumes seamlessly from its last completed step after a crash, eliminating the need for manual state recovery code.

Fan-out fan-in execution in distributed systems is handled by dispatching multiple concurrent activities from a single workflow and aggregating their results. This pattern maximizes throughput for parallel tasks while the parent workflow maintains overall execution state.

State management and determinism constraints in workflow orchestration are managed by isolating side effects into activities and keeping workflow logic purely deterministic. This ensures replaying the workflow history always produces identical execution paths.

Long-lived entities should be modeled as independent entity workflows when you need dedicated state management and lifecycle tracking for specific business objects. This pattern allows each entity to maintain its own state and handle interactions concurrently.