[subhobroto]

This is a good exercise but IMHO, when you really start using a workflow for production usecases, you need a a proper, turing-complete programming language as a DSL.

There used to be a project called Benthos (since acquired and rebranded by Redpanda in 2024) that was amazing, that you might want to gain some inspiration from.

However, durable workflows have also gained popular acceptance as functional design reaches a wider audience.

While Temporal is the most popular choice when it comes to durable workflows, DBOS (cofounded by the father of PostgreSQL) is my personal favorite.

At the moment, orchestration in DBOS has certain gaps - you might very well consider spending your effort on closing those gaps. The value there would be phenomenal!

[FelipeCortez]

I love Temporal and am DBOS-curious. what do you think DBOS does better?

[subhobroto]

Hi Felipe! Just point your agent at https://docs.dbos.dev/python/prompting and give it a go - you can really play around with it as much as you want and solve real problems you care about than me lecturing you about it :)

That said, DBOS really makes durable workflows accessible and approachable. Having already used Temporal, I think you're really appreciate how quickly you can get started with DBOS. I forget if they support SQLite but if you have a PostgreSQL server set up, you really don't need anything else to write your first few DBOS durable workflows (vs. needing a Temporal server or cluster)

Let me know if I got you interested to try it out. I first learned about Temporal from Mitchell Hashimoto as they were using it for Hashicorp Cloud. Eventually I discovered DBOS and now all my personal projects are on DBOS.

[halfcat]

The entire state is (mainly) two tables in Postgres. Maybe 10 tables total if you’re using all the features.

There’s something about seeing the ground truth, in full, in one place, when you’re trying to understand it, or troubleshoot it.