tomevault-io Temporal Core Concepts (Doc-first)
What this skill is for
Use this when the user asks:
- “How does Temporal work?” / “workflow vs activity?”
- Which feature to use (signals vs updates vs queries)
- General best practices and pitfalls
- “Where can I find an official sample for X?”
Mental model (non-negotiable)
- Workflows are durable, replayed state machines.
- Workflow code must be deterministic under replay.
- Activities are where side effects happen.
Vocabulary (quick)
- Workflow Execution: durable orchestration with replayed history.
- Activity: side-effecting step; retried by server policy.
- Task Queue: routing for workflow/activity tasks to workers.
- Signals: async, fire-and-forget messages into a workflow.
- Queries: read-only state inspection.
- Updates: state mutation with acknowledgement semantics.
- Child workflows: compositional orchestration units.
Docs-first stance
When in doubt:
- Prefer official Temporal docs for the feature being discussed.
- Prefer official samples for runnable patterns.
- Only add local explanation for the delta between docs/samples and the user’s context.
Official docs (start here)
- Temporal docs home
- .NET developer guide
- .NET “getting started” tutorial
Sample discovery (how to map a use-case → sample)
When asked “show me an example for X”:
- Identify the core primitive (activity retry / signal / update / child workflow / schedule / continue-as-new)
- Search official samples repo(s) for that primitive + the target language
- Return the top 1–3 samples and explain why each is relevant
Output expectations
- Keep explanations short and practical.
- Always call out determinism implications.
- Always give a “belongs in: Workflow/Activity/Worker/Client” decision when it’s not obvious.
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