Introduction to the Temporal Java SDK

~10 minutesBeginnerJava

Welcome to the Temporal Java SDK Background Check tutorial. The Temporal Java SDK Background Check tutorial documents the concepts, features, and tools that you'll use to create, test, and execute Temporal applications in Java.

Temporal Java SDK API reference

javadoc.io/doc/io.temporal/temporal-sdk

Short link: t.mp/java-api

The Temporal Java SDK released on March 28, 2020.

Supported runtimes

Developing applications with the Temporal Java SDK requires Java 1.8 or later.

Build configuration

Find the latest release of the Temporal Java SDK at Maven Central.

Add temporal-sdk as a dependency to your pom.xml:

pom.xml
<dependency>
  <groupId>io.temporal</groupId>
  <artifactId>temporal-sdk</artifactId>
  <version>N.N.N</version>
</dependency>

Or to build.gradle:

build.gradle

compile group: 'io.temporal', name: 'temporal-sdk', version: 'N.N.N'

Expected skills and experiences

The Temporal Platform enables developers to build a wide range of applications that serve a variety of use cases. The following skills will help you succeed with the Java SDK at production scale.

Recommended

Core fundamentals:

Java syntax and structure
Data types
Operators
Control statements: loops, conditionals
Basic Input/Output
Understanding of Java Virtual Machine (JVM)

Object-oriented programming:

Classes and objects
Interfaces
Inheritance
Encapsulation
Polymorphism

Java language features:

Annotations
Exception handling
Collections Framework
Java Stream API
Lambdas and functional interfaces
Threads and concurrency

Nice to have

Tools: beginner to moderate experience using a Java IDE, such as IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse.

Testing: experience with a testing library and framework such as JUnit or Mockito.

Code base version control: experience using a version control system, such as Git.

Dependency management: experience using a dependency management system such as Maven or Gradle.

Listing and sorting: experience with SQL-like syntax and CRUD operational concepts to make use of Temporal's Visibility tools.

Security: to onboard with Temporal Cloud or set up a self-hosted Cluster, you should have some understanding and experience with TLS, security certificates, and private keys.

Privacy: for applications that process any amount of user data, you should have some understanding and experience with PII and sensitive information encryption.

Complex and large scale use cases

For complex and large-scale use cases, at least some experience with the following can be helpful:

Deeper JVM understanding: memory management, garbage collection, JIT compilation.
Design patterns: singleton, factory, strategy, observer.
Distributed system architectures: event-driven architectures, stateful vs stateless processes, scalability, fault tolerance.

Code samples and resources

Where to find code samples and other resources for the Java SDK:

Continue reading this tutorial.
Temporal 101 course in Java - t.mp/java-101
Temporal 102 course in Java - t.mp/java-102
Documentation samples repository - temporalio/documentation-samples-java
Java SDK samples repository - temporalio/samples-java
Java SDK workshops - YouTube playlist
Java SDK tutorials - learn.temporal.io/getting_started/java/

Where to get help with the Java SDK:

The #java-sdk channel in Slack
Community Forum

Updates

How to follow updates to the Java SDK:

The Temporal newsletter includes major SDK updates.
GitHub Releases has all SDK releases. The release feed can be added to a feed reader or converted to emails: https://github.com/temporalio/sdk-java/releases.atom.

Contribution

The Temporal Java SDK is Apache 2.0 licensed, and contributions are welcome. Review the contribution guidelines.

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