core practice · system design prompt
Design exercise: Distributed Workflows & Temporal
Durable execution, event histories, deterministic replay, activities, retries, timers, and long-running workflows. Implement designOutline() returning non-empty values for: workflowHistory, deterministicReplay, activityIdempotency. Each value must name a concrete mechanism or decision.
The mechanism
A durable workflow persists decisions as history and replays deterministic code after failure. Side effects live in retryable activities with explicit idempotency.
Expected evidence
A design outline with workflowHistory, deterministicReplay, activityIdempotency plus an explicit failure mode or trade-off.
Try this drill in the practice workspace →
Hints when you need them
- Name the failure mode before selecting the mechanism.