workflow-orchestration-patterns

Use Temporal workflows to orchestrate distributed transactions by defining compensating actions for each step, enabling automatic rollback on failure. This saga pattern approach coordinates multi-service processes reliably with state persistence and deterministic execution across your services.

In durable workflow orchestration, keep workflows deterministic by isolating non-deterministic operations like API calls into activities. Activities run outside the deterministic workflow logic with idempotent patterns, configurable retries, and timeouts, ensuring safe interaction boundaries and reliable replay.

Yes, Temporal supports async callback patterns for long-running processes that must wait for external events or human approvals. Workflows pause automatically and resume upon receiving signals, with state persistence ensuring no progress is lost during the waiting period.

Use the Fan-Out/Fan-In pattern in Temporal to execute parallel tasks across multiple services and aggregate results. It provides built-in partial-failure handling, allowing your distributed workflows to manage errors in individual tasks without failing the entire orchestration.

Version Temporal workflows by applying backward compatibility guidelines that isolate changes using patching APIs. This ensures running executions continue safely on their original logic while new executions use the updated workflow code, preventing determinism violations during replay.

Avoid durable workflow orchestration for short-lived, stateless requests where the overhead of state persistence and deterministic replay outweighs reliability benefits. It is designed for long-running, multi-service processes requiring complex compensation logic, state management, and reliable coordination.