workflow-orchestration-patterns

1# Workflow Orchestration Patterns
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3Master workflow orchestration architecture with Temporal, covering fundamental design decisions, resilience patterns, and best practices for building reliable distributed systems.
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5## When to Use Workflow Orchestration
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7### Ideal Use Cases (Source: docs.temporal.io)
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9- **Multi-step processes** spanning machines/services/databases
10- **Distributed transactions** requiring all-or-nothing semantics
11- **Long-running workflows** (hours to years) with automatic state persistence
12- **Failure recovery** that must resume from last successful step
13- **Business processes**: bookings, orders, campaigns, approvals
14- **Entity lifecycle management**: inventory tracking, account management, cart workflows
15- **Infrastructure automation**: CI/CD pipelines, provisioning, deployments
16- **Human-in-the-loop** systems requiring timeouts and escalations
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18### When NOT to Use
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20- Simple CRUD operations (use direct API calls)
21- Pure data processing pipelines (use Airflow, batch processing)
22- Stateless request/response (use standard APIs)
23- Real-time streaming (use Kafka, event processors)
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25## Detailed patterns and worked examples
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27Detailed pattern documentation lives in `references/details.md`. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient.
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29## Best Practices
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31### Workflow Design
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331. **Keep workflows focused** - Single responsibility per workflow
342. **Small workflows** - Use child workflows for scalability
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