Workflow Orchestration Patterns FAQs

Question 1

When should I avoid using workflow orchestration?

Accepted Answer

Orchestration is overkill for simple CRUD operations, stateless request/response APIs, pure data processing pipelines like Airflow, or real-time streaming services.

Question 2

Why is determinism critical in Temporal workflows?

Accepted Answer

Temporal uses event sourcing to replay workflow code and restore state; any non-deterministic logic (like random numbers or direct system time) would cause the replay to diverge from the history.

Question 3

How does the skill handle activity failures?

Accepted Answer

It provides guidance on configuring retry policies, including exponential backoff and maximum attempts, as well as distinguishing between retryable and non-retryable errors.

Question 4

How does this skill help with distributed transactions?

Accepted Answer

It provides implementation patterns for the Saga pattern, which uses compensating actions to roll back successful steps if a subsequent part of a distributed transaction fails.

Question 5

What is the main difference between Workflows and Activities?

Accepted Answer

Workflows handle orchestration logic and must be deterministic, while Activities perform external interactions like API calls or database writes and can be non-deterministic.

Workflow Orchestration Patterns

Key Features

Use Cases

Workflow Orchestration Patterns

Key Features

Use Cases