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Activity Timeouts and Timers

1 post · Jun 2021 – Jun 2026

What this trail covers

This post clarifies the distinction between Temporal Timers and Activity Timeouts, emphasizing that Timers are for implementing business logic and durable waiting, while Timeouts are for detecting failures. It details the four Activity timeout types (Start-to-Close, Schedule-to-Close, Schedule-to-Start, and Heartbeat) and their use cases, providing guidance on how to configure them for reliable workflow execution. The post also touches upon the underlying Temporal Service mechanisms for handling these timeouts, including the internal timer queue.

All Temporal trails
  1. Timers, Timeouts, and the Art of Waiting in TemporalThis post clarifies the distinction between Temporal Timers and Activity Timeouts, emphasizing that Timers are for implementing business logic and durable waiting, while Timeouts are for detecting failures. It details the four Activity timeout types (Start-to-Close, Schedule-to-Close, Schedule-to-Start, and Heartbeat) and their use cases, providing guidance on how to configure them for reliable workflow execution. The post also touches upon the underlying Temporal Service mechanisms for handling these timeouts, including the internal timer queue.
  2. The four types of Activity timeoutsThis post details the four types of Activity timeouts in Temporal: Start-To-Close, Schedule-To-Close, Heartbeat, and Schedule-To-Start. It explains their purpose, use cases, and provides code examples in Go and Java for setting them. The post emphasizes the importance of always setting Start-To-Close and using Heartbeat timeouts for long-running activities. It also clarifies when Schedule-To-Start is rarely needed and suggests monitoring related metrics instead.