Temporal Patterns

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This page is part of the Temporal Knowledge Hub.

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Curate Temporal Workflow patterns relevant to your use cases so developers can quickly find solutions.

Parallel Activity

What it does	Execute multiple Activities concurrently.
Why use it	Improve Workflow performance when Activities are independent and don't need sequential execution.
Code samples	Python, Java

Custom Search Attributes

What it does	Adds custom key-value metadata to Workflow executions.
Why use it	Enables advanced filtering, sorting, and visibility of Workflows in the Web UI and CLI based on business-specific data.
Code samples	Python, Java

Child Workflow

What it does	Spawns a new Workflow execution from within a parent Workflow.
Why use it	Partition work into smaller chunks, encapsulates Activities into observable components, and model business entities with different lifecycles.
Code samples	Python, Java

Continue as new

What it does	Atomically completes the current Workflow execution and starts a new one with the same Workflow ID.
Why use it	Prevents "Event History Limit Exceeded" errors and other Workflow Execution limits by clearing the history.
Code samples	Python, Java

Exception handling

What it does	Implements logic to catch and respond to Activity or Workflow failures.
Why use it	Ensures system resilience by defining fallback logic, compensation transactions, or specific retry policies when errors occur.
Code samples	Python, Java

Cancellation

What it does	Sends a request to gracefully terminate a running Workflow or specific scope.
Why use it	Stops unnecessary processing and cleans up resources when a result is no longer needed or a user explicitly stops the process.
Code samples	Python, Java

Async Activity completion

What it does	Enables the Activity Function to return without the Activity Execution completing.
Why use it	Essential for long-running external processes that can heartbeat and inform Temporal of its completion.
Code samples	Python, Java

Local Activity

What it does	Executes short-lived Activity logic within the same process as the Workflow Worker.
Why use it	Reduces latency and history size for short, high-throughput operations that do not require global durability guarantees.
Code samples	Python, Java

Batch Processing (Sliding Window)

What it does	Processes a large stream of items in controlled, concurrent chunks.
Why use it	Manages concurrency and throughput limits while efficiently processing high volumes of data without overwhelming downstream services.
Code samples	Python, Java

Custom Metrics

What it does	Emits application-specific telemetry (counters, gauges, timers) from Workflows and Activities.
Why use it	Provides observability into business-level KPIs and specific Workflow performance characteristics beyond default system metrics.
Code samples	Python, Java

Encryption

What it does	Encrypts Workflow and Activity payloads client-side using a custom Data Converter.
Why use it	Ensures sensitive data remains secure and opaque to the Temporal Server, satisfying strict compliance and privacy requirements.
Code samples	Python, Java

Polling

What it does	Periodically checks the state of an external system from within an Activity.
Why use it	Provides reliable integration with external APIs or systems that do not provide webhooks or asynchronous event notifications.
Code samples	Python, Java

Worker routing

What it does	Dynamically routes Activities to specific Task Queues monitored by designated Workers.
Why use it	Targets tasks to specific hosts or environments; required for file-system affinity, local caching strategies, or hardware-specific (e.g., GPU) operations.
Code samples	Python, Java

Saga

What it does	Manages long-running, distributed transactions by executing a sequence of steps. If a step fails, it triggers "compensating actions" (undo operations) in reverse order to revert the changes made by previous steps.
Why use it	Ensures data consistency across microservices (e.g., booking a flight, hotel, and car) without locking resources for long periods. It handles partial failures gracefully by rolling back the system to a known consistent state.
Code samples	Java

Early Return

What it does	Uses "Update with Start" to begin a Workflow execution and synchronously return a result to the client (e.g., validation success) while continuing to process longer-running tasks (e.g., database updates, external API calls) in the background.
Why use it	Drastically reduces end-user latency in interactive applications. Users receive immediate feedback (like an "Order Received" confirmation) without waiting for the entire process to complete.
Code samples	Java

Example Temporal Applications

See Temporal Code Exchange for example Temporal applications.