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.