Workflow Orchestration Patterns

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name: workflow-orchestration-patterns
description: Design durable workflows with Temporal for distributed systems. Covers workflow vs activity separation, saga patterns, state management, and determinism constraints. Use when building long-running processes, distributed transactions, or microservice orchestration.
---

# Workflow Orchestration Patterns

Master workflow orchestration architecture with Temporal, covering fundamental design decisions, resilience patterns, and best practices for building reliable distributed systems.

## When to Use Workflow Orchestration

### Ideal Use Cases (Source: docs.temporal.io)

- **Multi-step processes** spanning machines/services/databases
- **Distributed transactions** requiring all-or-nothing semantics
- **Long-running workflows** (hours to years) with automatic state persistence
- **Failure recovery** that must resume from last successful step
- **Business processes**: bookings, orders, campaigns, approvals
- **Entity lifecycle management**: inventory tracking, account management, cart workflows
- **Infrastructure automation**: CI/CD pipelines, provisioning, deployments
- **Human-in-the-loop** systems requiring timeouts and escalations

### When NOT to Use

- Simple CRUD operations (use direct API calls)… load the full skill through Skill Me