Getting Started
Choose the guide that matches your use case:
- Cloud Metrics: Collect Temporal Cloud metrics via OpenTelemetry Collector
- Golang: Instrument a Temporal Go application with OpenTelemetry
- TypeScript: Instrument a Temporal TypeScript application with OpenTelemetry
What is Temporal?
Temporal is a durable workflow execution platform for building reliable distributed systems. It manages long-running workflows that can span hours, days, or months, coordinating multiple steps, retries, and state management automatically.
Temporal Architecture
Temporal separates applications into Clients (which start workflows) and Workers (which execute the business logic). This separation provides fault tolerance, allowing workers to resume seamlessly if they crash mid-workflow.
Workers poll the server for tasks. The server persists workflow state for fault tolerance.
Why Monitor Temporal?
Temporal workflows are distributed and long-running. Observability helps you:
- Track workflow execution paths and identify bottlenecks
- Correlate worker failures with specific workflow steps
- Monitor latency across workflow stages
- Debug issues using distributed traces that span client, worker, and activities