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Learn Temporal / Start here / In action

See Temporal in Action.

Walk through a Workflow that breaks on purpose and recovers automatically. Five steps with real code and the Temporal Web UI - pick your language at the top.

In any complex system, failures happen - machines crash, networks go down. Normally you write retry loops and recovery code. Temporal makes your code durable by default.

Take a reimbursement: withdraw from one account, deposit into another. What if the withdrawal succeeds but the network drops before the deposit?

Walk through it in five steps below. Inject a failure, Temporal retries, fix the bug, the Workflow completes.

Step 1 of 5

Meet the Workflow

package reimbursement

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"

    "go.temporal.io/sdk/temporal"
    "go.temporal.io/sdk/workflow"
)

func ReimbursementWorkflow(ctx workflow.Context, userId string, amount float64) (string, error) {
    options := workflow.ActivityOptions{
        StartToCloseTimeout: time.Second * 5,
        RetryPolicy: &temporal.RetryPolicy{
            InitialInterval:    time.Second * 2,
            BackoffCoefficient: 2,
            MaximumInterval:    time.Minute,
            MaximumAttempts:    100,
        },
    }
    ctx = workflow.WithActivityOptions(ctx, options)

    err := workflow.ExecuteActivity(ctx, WithdrawMoney, amount).Get(ctx, nil)
    if err != nil {
        return "", err
    }

    err = workflow.ExecuteActivity(ctx, DepositMoney, amount).Get(ctx, nil)
    if err != nil {
        return "", err
    }
    return fmt.Sprintf("reimbursement to %s successfully complete", userId), nil
}

An ActivityActivityA unit of work called from a Workflow. Activities can talk to the outside world (APIs, databases, anything that might fail) and are automatically retried on failure.Read the docs is a function for a single fallible operation - an API call, database write, network request. Temporal retries failed Activities automatically.

A WorkflowWorkflowA function that orchestrates work. Workflows run durably: if a process crashes, Temporal restores its state and resumes exactly where it left off.Read the docs orchestrates Activities and runs durably: if the application crashes, Temporal recreates its pre-failure state and continues right where it left off. The Workflow below orchestrates two Activities: withdraw, then deposit.

What's next

  1. 01

    Set up your dev environment

    Install the SDK, the CLI, and verify your machine is ready.

    ~5 min
  2. 02

    Run a Temporal application

    Download a small app and watch Temporal handle failures.

    ~20 min
  3. 03

    Build one from scratch

    Write your own Workflow and Activity from the ground up.

    ~20 min

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