📊 Temporal in Action

Order Processing Workflow Demo

This diagram shows how Temporal handles a real-world order processing workflow with:

✅ Automatic retries
✅ State persistence
✅ Resilient execution

Let's see Temporal's magic in action!

🔄 The Order Processing Flow

sequenceDiagram participant U as Customer participant W as Order Workflow participant I as Inventory Service participant P as Payment Service participant S as Shipping Service participant N as Notification Service Note over U,N: Temporal Workflow Orchestration U->>W: Place Order W->>W: 📝 Persist: Order Created

Step 1: Customer places order, Temporal immediately persists the state

🏪 Inventory Check (with Retries)

sequenceDiagram participant W as Order Workflow participant I as Inventory Service Note over W,I: Step 1: Inventory Check (with retries) W->>I: Check Inventory I-->>W: ❌ Service Timeout Note over W: Auto-retry with backoff (1s) W->>I: Check Inventory (Retry 1) I-->>W: ❌ Service Unavailable Note over W: Auto-retry with backoff (2s) W->>I: Check Inventory (Retry 2) I->>W: ✅ Inventory Available W->>W: 📝 Persist: Inventory Reserved

Notice: Temporal automatically retries failed calls with smart backoff!

💳 Payment Processing

sequenceDiagram participant W as Order Workflow participant P as Payment Service Note over W,P: Step 2: Payment Processing W->>P: Process Payment P->>W: ✅ Payment Successful W->>W: 📝 Persist: Payment Completed

Key Point: Each successful step is persisted before moving to the next

📦 Shipping & Notifications

sequenceDiagram participant W as Order Workflow participant S as Shipping Service participant N as Notification Service Note over W,N: Step 3: Shipping Coordination W->>S: Schedule Shipping S->>W: ✅ Shipping Scheduled W->>W: 📝 Persist: Shipping Arranged Note over W,N: Step 4: Customer Notification W->>N: Send Confirmation Email N->>W: ✅ Email Sent W->>N: Send SMS Update N-->>W: ❌ SMS Service Down Note over W: Continue workflow (non-critical failure) W->>W: 📝 Persist: Order Completed

Smart Handling: SMS failure doesn't break the entire workflow!

🛡️ Temporal's Guarantees

What Temporal Provides Automatically:

✅ Automatic retries with exponential backoff
✅ State persisted at each step
✅ Workflow survives server crashes
✅ Exactly-once execution
✅ Comprehensive observability

Result: Bulletproof distributed systems with simple code!

🔄 Without Temporal (The Hard Way)

What you'd have to build manually:

❌ Manual retry logic everywhere
❌ Complex state management
❌ Brittle failure handling
❌ Difficult testing and debugging
❌ Lost transactions on crashes

Result: Months of infrastructure work, bugs, and maintenance nightmares

🎯 What This Diagram Shows

Temporal's Magic:

Automatic Retries: Inventory service fails twice but Temporal retries with smart backoff
State Persistence: Each step saves progress (📝) so crashes can't lose work
Resilient Execution: SMS failure doesn't break the entire workflow
Clean Code: Workflow logic stays simple despite complex retry/failure scenarios

🔥 Real-World Impact

Business Benefits:

No Lost Orders: Server crashes can't cause partially processed orders
Better Customer Experience: Reliable order processing with automatic recovery
Easier Development: Focus on business logic instead of infrastructure concerns
Operational Confidence: Built-in observability and debugging capabilities

🚀 This is Just the Beginning

As you progress through the bootcamp, you'll learn to build workflows that:

Handle much more complex business logic
Coordinate dozens of services
Wait for human approvals
Process data in parallel
Scale to millions of executions

💡 Key Insight

This workflow looks simple but handles complex distributed systems challenges automatically.

Temporal manages retries, state persistence, and failure recovery while your code stays clean and readable.

🎉 Ready to Build This Yourself?

You've seen the power of Temporal in action!

Visual Introduction