Temporal design for manipulating multiple sequential api calls

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1

I’m looking for design guidance on using Temporal efficiently for a workflow that orchestrates multiple microservices sequentially in a Java/Spring Boot application.

My use case is like this:

  • Microservice A is called first

  • the response from Microservice A is used to build the request for Microservice B and stored in context.

  • the response from Microservice B is used for Microservice C and stored in context

  • and so on

So this is a strictly sequential flow where each next step depends on the previous step’s response.

A few important constraints:

  • there are no compensating API calls

  • after every microservice call, I need to persist the context pojo into a database table. Context pojo contains request and response

  • I do not update existing rows

  • each step creates a new row

  • each new row contains the accumulated history from the previous step plus the current step’s request/response

  • for example, when Microservice B completes, a new record is inserted that contains:

    • Microservice A request/response

    • Microservice B request/response

  • then when Microservice C completes, another new record is inserted with:

    • Microservice A request/response

    • Microservice B request/response

    • Microservice C request/response

I’m trying to understand the best design for this in Temporal.

My main questions are:

  1. What is the recommended way to model the evolving shared data between activities when each next service depends on the previous response?

  2. Should this accumulated request/response history live in workflow state, activity input/output, or be rebuilt from external persistence?

  3. Is it a good pattern to persist a new database row after every consecutive microservice call from within activities?

  4. Are there any determinism or replay concerns if the workflow keeps growing an in-memory context object that contains all prior request/response data?

  5. For a use case like this, is a single workflow with multiple sequential activities the right design, or is there a better Temporal pattern?

  6. Are there any anti-patterns to avoid when combining sequential orchestration with insert-only audit/history records?

I’m mainly looking for design guidance.

2

Why do you need a DB to persist activity results? Are they very large?