Reference on Dwarf

Glossary

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Glossary

For everyone. Each term in one sentence, with a link to where it is explained in full.

Archive. Where a closed flow moves about a minute after it closes, readable by its key and listed by ListClosed until the retention drops it. Driving Flows

Baggage. Context your application attaches to a flow, such as the acting user, that every task can read but no task can change. Writing Tasks

FAQ

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

FAQ

For everyone. Short answers, each with a link to the full explanation.

Does Dwarf Need Its Own Server?

No. Dwarf is a library that runs inside your application. The only infrastructure is the SQL database it stores flows in, and replicas of your application coordinate through that database. See How Dwarf Works.

Do Tasks Have to Be Written in Go?

No. The engine and its host are Go, but the host can reach tasks written in any language, for example over HTTP with JSON in and out. See Tasks in Other Languages.

Coming from Temporal or LangGraph

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Coming from Temporal or LangGraph

For developers who know Temporal or LangGraph and want to find their footing in Dwarf quickly.

From Temporal

Temporal	Dwarf	Notes
Workflow definition	Graph	A declarative graph of tasks and transitions instead of imperative code, so nothing is replayed and there are no determinism constraints.
Workflow execution	Flow
Activity	Task	A plain function, reached by URL through your host.
Worker	Your application, with the engine embedded	There is no separate Temporal Service to run.
Task queue	Your host	The host decides how each task URL is reached.
Retry policy	`f.Retry`	Called by the task, which decides what is retryable.
Timer	`f.Sleep`
Signal	`Resume`	Delivers input to a task waiting in `f.Interrupt`.
Query	`Snapshot`	Reads a flow’s status and state.
Child workflow	Subgraph
Continue-as-new	`Continue`	Starts a new flow from a completed flow’s final state. Your application keeps the chain of flow keys.
Versioning and patching	Frozen graphs	Each flow keeps the graph it started with. See Graph Evolution.
Visibility and search attributes	`ListOpen` and `ListClosed`	Filter by status, workflow, task, fairness key, time and free text. Closed flows are listed from the archive, kept for the retention.
Task queue priority and fairness	Priority and fairness keys

The main shift is where orchestration logic lives. In Temporal it is code that the server replays; in Dwarf it is a graph, with loops, conditions, fan-out and computed jumps, and anything more complex goes in a task, which is plain code. See Building Graphs.