# How does temporal guarantee multiple workers can't pick up same task?

**URL:** <https://community.temporal.io/t/how-does-temporal-guarantee-multiple-workers-cant-pick-up-same-task/7518>\
**Category:** Community Support\
**Created:** [March 8, 2023, 7:08pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/how-does-temporal-guarantee-multiple-workers-cant-pick-up-same-task/7518 "2023-03-08T19:08:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jeety\_19](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/jeety_19/32/3449_2.png) [@jeety\_19](https://community.temporal.io/u/jeety_19)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 7:08pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/how-does-temporal-guarantee-multiple-workers-cant-pick-up-same-task/7518/1 "2023-03-08T19:08:16Z")

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Hi,

Very new to temporal and been going through the docs but couldn’t find the answer to my question. Your help will very much be appreciated 😄

**Question:**  
How does Temporal ensure that multiple workers, which are connected to the same task queue, do not pick up the same task at the same time? Are there any configuration options or best practices for optimizing task coordination in a distributed environment?

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**Author:** ![maxim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/maxim/32/8_2.png) [@maxim](https://community.temporal.io/u/maxim)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 7:13pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/how-does-temporal-guarantee-multiple-workers-cant-pick-up-same-task/7518/2 "2023-03-08T19:13:07Z")

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Before a task is returned to a worker a correspondent task started event is added to the workflow history. The call to add this event is used for task deduplication as it can succeed only once.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jeety\_19](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/jeety_19/32/3449_2.png) [@jeety\_19](https://community.temporal.io/u/jeety_19)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 8:24pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/how-does-temporal-guarantee-multiple-workers-cant-pick-up-same-task/7518/3 "2023-03-08T20:24:17Z")

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thank you! thats amazing, where could i find the docs regarding this subject or are they internal?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maxim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/maxim/32/8_2.png) [@maxim](https://community.temporal.io/u/maxim)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 9:39pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/how-does-temporal-guarantee-multiple-workers-cant-pick-up-same-task/7518/4 "2023-03-08T21:39:10Z")

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I don’t think such a document exists.