In software development, failures are inevitable. A database query can time out. A network call might fail. An external service could suddenly go down.
As developers, we spend a lot of time writing extra code to handle these failures after we’ve already implemented the business logic. This adds complexity and often distracts from the core purpose of the application.
Temporal
is a platform that lets developers write code as if failures don’t exist.
Its programming model is called Durable Execution.
In simple terms, “durable” means being able to withstand pressure or damage. In the world of software, that means tolerating failures—network outages, database crashes, service downtime—without breaking your application logic.
When a task fails because an external service goes down, Temporal automatically retries the task until it succeeds. This happens behind the scenes, so developers only need to focus on writing the business logic, not the retry logic.
At the core of this magic is Event History. Temporal records the input and output of every task in a workflow. If a failure occurs, it replays the event history to recover and continue execution without losing state.
Here’s an example:
Your workflow has two tasks: A and B.
Task A runs successfully, and its result is saved in the Event History.
Task B fails on the first attempt.
Temporal notices the failure and retries B until it eventually succeeds.
Importantly, Temporal doesn’t re-run A—it uses the Event History to remember that A already succeeded.
Once both A and B succeed, their results are recorded, and the workflow completes.
This model frees developers from writing endless retry logic, manual state management, or complex recovery flows. Instead, they can focus on what their code should do—leaving Temporal to handle how it survives real-world failures.
— Aug 9, 2025
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