What is the primary rule for Temporal workflows?

Workflows must be deterministic, meaning they produce the same output for the same input and avoid direct external calls like API requests or database writes.

When should I use Activities instead of Workflows?

Activities should be used for any non-deterministic operations, such as calling third-party APIs, querying databases, or any network-bound communication.

How does the Saga pattern work in this skill?

The Saga pattern implements distributed transactions by registering compensation actions for every step; if a failure occurs, it executes those compensations in reverse order.

Does this skill help with existing workflow migrations?

Yes, it provides strategies for workflow versioning and backward compatibility to ensure that existing executions can finish correctly even after code changes.

Workflow Orchestration Patterns

Name: Workflow Orchestration Patterns
Author: HermeticOrmus

byHermeticOrmus

0•

Productivity & Workflow

Architects resilient, long-running distributed systems using Temporal's workflow and activity patterns for durable execution.

This skill provides specialized guidance for designing durable, reliable workflows in distributed systems using Temporal. It helps developers master the critical separation between deterministic orchestration logic (Workflows) and non-deterministic external interactions (Activities). By implementing patterns like Sagas for distributed transactions, Entity Workflows for actor-model state management, and Fan-out/Fan-in for parallel processing, this skill ensures that complex business processes remain consistent and resumable even in the face of infrastructure failures.

Key Features

01Implementation of the Saga pattern for distributed transactions and rollbacks

020 GitHub stars

03Strategies for long-lived Entity Workflows and state management

04Parallel execution patterns for Fan-out/Fan-in scaling

05Guidance on deterministic workflow design vs. idempotent activities

06Best practices for workflow versioning and error handling policies

Use Cases

01Building multi-step e-commerce checkout systems with automated failure recovery

02Orchestrating complex microservice interactions across distributed environments

03Managing long-running lifecycle processes for user accounts or inventory items

What are Skills?·How to Install

Install with 🐟 Skill.Fish

npx skillfish add hermeticormus/hermetic-academy workflow-orchestration-patterns

For use in Claude.ai and ChatGPT

Download Skill