Temporal Workflow (.twf)
Design Temporal workflows using a language-agnostic notation that captures workflow structure, activity boundaries, and Temporal primitives — before writing SDK code.
Features
Language Server
Full language server with real-time diagnostics:
- Parse & resolve errors — undefined activities, duplicate definitions, temporal keywords in wrong context
- Symbol resolution — activity calls, workflow calls, signals, queries, updates, promises, and conditions are all cross-referenced
- Syntax highlighting — keywords, types, operators, durations, and comments
- Bracket matching and code folding
Workflow Visualizer
Interactive graph visualization of .twf files, accessible from the editor title bar or command palette:
- Visualize file — parses the current
.twf file and renders workflows, activities, and their relationships
- Visualize folder — renders all workflows across multiple
.twf files in a folder
- Live refresh — updates automatically when you save a
.twf file
- Focused view — follows the active editor, highlighting the workflows defined in the current file
AI Design Skills
Installs Temporal design skills for Cursor's AI agent:
- Workflow design — guides the agent through designing workflows with proper determinism, idempotency, and decomposition
- Go authoring — translates
.twf designs into Temporal Go SDK code
Temporal Features
The TWF notation covers the core Temporal feature set:
| Feature |
TWF Construct |
Purpose |
| Activities |
activity |
Side-effecting operations with retry and timeout options |
| Child Workflows |
workflow |
Decompose into independent sub-workflows |
| Signals |
signal |
Async fire-and-forget input to a running workflow |
| Queries |
query |
Synchronous read of workflow state |
| Updates |
update |
Synchronous mutation with a return value |
| Timers |
timer |
Durable sleep that survives restarts |
| Promises |
promise |
Non-blocking async operations, awaited later |
| Conditions |
condition / set / unset |
Named boolean awaitables for coordination |
| Fan-out / Fan-in |
await all |
Run operations concurrently, wait for all |
| Racing / Select |
await one |
Race between signals, timers, activities, and more |
| Detach |
detach workflow |
Fire-and-forget child workflows |
| Nexus |
nexus |
Cross-namespace workflow calls |
| Continue-as-New |
close continue_as_new |
Reset history for long-running workflows |
| Heartbeats |
heartbeat |
Report activity progress, detect worker death |
| Options |
options { } |
Task queues, timeouts, retry policies, priority |
| Workflow Termination |
close complete / close fail |
Explicit workflow exit with status |
Installation
Search for "Temporal Workflow" in the VS Code or Cursor extension marketplace.
The extension bundles the twf binary (language server + parser). No additional setup required.
Commands
| Command |
Description |
| TWF: Visualize Workflow |
Open the interactive visualizer for the current .twf file |
| TWF: Visualize All Workflows in Folder |
Visualize all .twf files in a folder |
| TWF: Install Temporal Skills |
Re-install AI design skills to ~/.cursor/skills/ |
License
MIT
| |
