saga-orchestration Skill (wshobson) for Claude: What It Does and How to Install It

Helps Claude design sagas for distributed transactions, with compensating steps, timeouts and monitoring.

Installs: 10.9K; on skills.sh
Stars: 42.1K; on GitHub
Files: 2; besides SKILL.md
Updated: Oct 2026; last repo commit

This skill is a guide from wshobson's agents collection for transactions that span several services without two-phase commit. You give it service boundaries, which steps must be atomic, failure modes, step deadlines and your messaging setup. It returns a saga definition, an orchestrator or choreography implementation, compensation logic, timeouts and monitoring.

Templates are in references/details.md and production code is in references/advanced-patterns.md. SKILL.md adds best practices and five troubleshooting cases. It loads when you build distributed transactions, design compensating actions or debug stuck sagas.

Good for

Backend engineers coordinating transactions across microservices
Teams building order, booking or approval flows
Anyone debugging a saga stuck in compensation
Platform teams adding monitoring for long-running workflows

Install saga-orchestration

Claude Code

Copy this prompt.

Install the saga-orchestration skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add wshobson/agents
/plugin install backend-development@claude-code-workflows

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.

2
Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

Pick one route. The plugin routes install the whole backend-development plugin: 8 agents, 1 command and 9 skills (counted from the plugin folder in the repo tree, which has no hooks or MCP config files). The skills-only routes install just this skill, with no agents or commands. The skill is a guide, and its code examples are Python.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Implement saga patterns for distributed transactions and cross-aggregate workflows. Use this skill when implementing distributed transactions across microservices where 2PC is unavailable, designing compensating actions for failed order workflows that span inventory, payment, and shipping services, building event-driven saga coordinators for travel booking systems that must roll back hotel, flight, and car rental reservations atomically, or debugging stuck saga states in production where compensation steps never complete.

Sections in SKILL.md

Inputs and Outputs
When to Use This Skill
Detailed section: Core Concepts
Detailed section: Templates
Best Practices
Do's
Don'ts
Troubleshooting
Saga stuck in COMPENSATING state
Duplicate saga executions on restart
Choreography saga losing events
Timeout firing before a slow-but-valid step completes
Compensation order not matching execution order
Advanced Patterns
Related Skills

Key facts

Author: wshobson (repo owner)
License: MIT
Installs on skills.sh: 10,897 (Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars: 42,081 for the whole wshobson/agents repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last repo commit: Oct 30, 2026
What it includes: 3 files including SKILL.md: references/details.md and references/advanced-patterns.md (no scripts)
Needs: Your own messaging infrastructure, such as Kafka, RabbitMQ or SQS. The code examples are Python
Part of: The backend-development plugin (version 1.3.3) in wshobson/agents. Counted from the plugin folder: 8 agents, 1 command and 9 skills
Works in: Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity CLI, GitHub Copilot and Pi, per the README. Skills-only installers ask which tool you use

What it includes

What you give it and what it produces
You give service boundaries, atomicity needs, failure modes, SLAs and your messaging setup. It produces a saga definition, an implementation, compensation logic, timeouts and monitoring.
Read · Inputs and outputs
Template 1: an orchestrated saga across four services
A Python subclass of a base orchestrator with steps for inventory, payment, shipping and notification (references/details.md).
Write · Order fulfillment saga
Template 2: services react to each other's events
Event-driven version with no central coordinator (references/details.md).
Write · Choreography saga
Template 3: stop replayed steps from running twice
Guards each step with an idempotency key, used against duplicate runs after a restart (references/details.md).
Write · Idempotent step guards
Orchestration vs choreography, five states, compensation rules
States are Started, Pending, Compensating, Completed and Failed (references/details.md).
Read · Core concepts
Six do's and five don'ts
Covers idempotent steps, careful compensations, correlation IDs, per-step timeouts and testing the rollback path.
Read · Best practices
Five common failure cases
Stuck in compensating, duplicate runs on restart, lost events in choreography, early timeouts and wrong compensation order.
Read · Troubleshooting
Base class, per-step timeouts, bank transfer chain, monitoring, DLQ recovery
Production code and Prometheus alert queries in references/advanced-patterns.md.
Write · Advanced patterns

From the official docs

Questions

What does the saga-orchestration skill do?

It gives Claude patterns for transactions that span several services without two-phase commit. Claude uses it to define saga steps, write compensating actions, set per-step timeouts and add monitoring.

How do I install saga-orchestration?

Use the install box at the top of this page. It lists the plugin route and two skills-only commands: npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill saga-orchestration and gh skill install wshobson/agents saga-orchestration (GitHub CLI 2.90 or later), which skip the plugin's agents and commands.

Orchestration or choreography?

references/details.md says to choose orchestration when you need explicit step tracking, retries and central visibility, and choreography when you want loose coupling and services that evolve independently.

What language are the examples in?

The templates and advanced patterns are Python, and the monitoring section includes Prometheus alert queries. You supply the messaging system, such as Kafka, RabbitMQ or SQS.

Do I need the related skills?

No. SKILL.md lists cqrs-implementation, event-store-design and workflow-orchestration-patterns as pairings. They are separate skills in the same repo. The last one covers higher-level workflow engines such as Temporal and Conductor.

Is this skill from Anthropic?

No. It is in wshobson/agents, a community collection. The skill sits in the backend-development plugin there.

Should I install the whole backend-development plugin?

Only if you want the rest. The README documents a plugin route for Claude Code and Codex. The plugin folder holds 8 agents, 1 command and 9 skills (api-design-principles, architecture-patterns, cqrs-implementation, event-store-design, microservices-patterns, projection-patterns, saga-orchestration, temporal-python-testing, workflow-orchestration-patterns), and the repo tree shows no hooks or MCP config files in it. The install box offers the plugin and skills-only commands.

Does it work in Codex or Cursor?

The README documents Codex CLI as a plugin route and a skills-only install. For Cursor it points to a plugin marketplace and its setup docs, which we did not check, so follow the README there.

Is it safe?

The folder holds SKILL.md and two reference files and bundles no scripts. The files contain Python code examples and Prometheus alert queries. Review any compensation logic Claude writes before it touches payments or inventory, and test the rollback path as SKILL.md advises.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository: wshobson/agents
Folder: plugins/backend-development/skills/saga-orchestration

wshobson/agents skills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 5

saga-orchestration SKILL.md · github.com
wshobson/agents README · github.com
backend-development plugin.json · github.com
saga-orchestration details.md · github.com
saga-orchestration advanced-patterns.md · github.com