workflow-orchestration-patterns (wshobson/agents): a Claude skill for designing durable workflows with Temporal

This skill makes Claude design long-running, failure-proof workflows with Temporal, keeping orchestration in workflows and outside calls in activities.

Installs: 12.3K; on skills.sh
Stars: 42.1K; on GitHub
Files: 1; besides SKILL.md
Updated: Oct 2026; last repo commit

Use it when you ask Claude to design a multi-step process across services, a saga with rollbacks, a long-running order or booking flow, or a human approval with timeouts. SKILL.md gives the core rule: workflows orchestrate and must be deterministic, activities call the outside world and must be safe to retry.

It lists when Temporal is a good fit and when it is not, such as simple CRUD calls or streaming. A detail file covers four patterns (saga, entity workflow, fan-out and fan-in, async callback), determinism, versioning, retries and heartbeats. The skill bundles no scripts.

Good for

Backend engineers designing distributed transactions or long-running processes
Teams adopting Temporal who want a design review of workflow and activity boundaries
Developers fixing non-deterministic workflow bugs

Install workflow-orchestration-patterns

Claude Code

Copy this prompt.

Install the workflow-orchestration-patterns 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.

The plugin is backend-development. It holds 9 skills, 8 agents and 1 command, and its plugin.json lists no hooks or MCP servers. Pick one route, not both. The README says the skills-only routes install the skill without the plugin's agents, commands or hooks.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Design durable workflows with Temporal for distributed systems. Covers workflow vs activity separation, saga patterns, state management, and determinism constraints. Use when building long-running processes, distributed transactions, or microservice orchestration.

Sections in SKILL.md

When to Use Workflow Orchestration
Ideal Use Cases (Source: docs.temporal.io)
When NOT to Use
Detailed patterns and worked examples
Best Practices
Workflow Design
Activity Design
Common Pitfalls
Operational Considerations
Additional Resources

Key facts

Author: Seth Hobson (plugin author)
Repo: wshobson/agents (plugins/backend-development/skills/workflow-orchestration-patterns)
License: MIT
Installs on skills.sh: 12,279 as of 2026-11-02
GitHub stars: 42,081 (whole repo) as of 2026-11-02
Last repo commit: 2026-10-30
Folder contents: 2 files including SKILL.md: references/details.md holds the worked patterns
skills.sh audits: Gen Agent Trust Hub pass, Socket pass, Snyk pass

What it includes

Lists good fits such as multi-step processes and sagas, and poor fits such as CRUD.
When to use
Workflows orchestrate and stay deterministic; activities do outside calls.
Workflows vs activities
Registers a compensation before each step and runs them in reverse on failure.
Saga pattern
One long-lived workflow per entity, in an actor style.
Entity workflows
Runs work in parallel and collects the results.
Fan-out and fan-in
Waits for an outside callback inside a workflow.
Async callback
Constraints on workflow code and ways to change running workflows.
Determinism and versioning
Retry policies, idempotency and progress reports for long activities.
Retries and heartbeats
Design rules for workflows and activities, pitfalls and operational notes.
Best practices

From the official docs

Questions

What does the skill do?

It guides Claude on designing durable workflows with Temporal. It covers the split between workflows and activities, saga patterns with compensation, state and determinism limits, retry policies, idempotency and heartbeats.

How do I install it?

Use the install box above. The skill lives in the backend-development plugin of the wshobson/agents collection. The plugin route installs the whole plugin, and the skills-only routes install just this skill.

What else comes with the plugin?

The backend-development plugin holds 9 skills, 8 agents and 1 command in the repo, per its folder listing. Its plugin.json names no hooks or MCP servers. Use a skills-only command if you want just this one skill.

Is it only for Temporal?

Yes. The patterns, rules and examples are written for Temporal. SKILL.md also names alternatives for cases Temporal does not fit: Airflow for data pipelines, Kafka for streams and direct API calls for simple CRUD.

Does it need an API key or a Temporal server?

No key is mentioned and the skill bundles no scripts. It gives design guidance. You need your own Temporal setup to run what Claude designs.

Is it safe?

It bundles no scripts and gives guidance and code examples. Review any Temporal code Claude writes before you run it against a real cluster.

What are the common mistakes it warns about?

Using the system clock instead of the workflow clock, threads or async work inside workflow code, calling outside APIs from a workflow, activities that are not safe to retry, missing timeouts, and ignoring the 2MB payload limit.

Which languages are the examples in?

The SKILL.md pitfalls mention Python calls such as workflow.now(). The same plugin has a separate Temporal Python testing skill.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

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

wshobson/agents skills.sh

Sources

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

Show all 6

wshobson/agents README · github.com
marketplace.json · github.com
workflow-orchestration-patterns SKILL.md · github.com
backend-development plugin.json · github.com
details.md · github.com
workflow-orchestration-patterns on skills.sh · skills.sh