Temporal Workflow Observability

Implementation evidence

Temporal Workflow Observability: from boundary to verified row

Use Temporal Workflow Observability at a controlled application boundary, keep the event contract small, and verify a known outcome before building aggregate views.

1
Choose the outcome
Workflow completion monitoring
2
Define the contract
workflow_type, workflow_id, run_id, and status
3
Instrument the boundary
Send Telemetry events from an activity or worker interceptor, not directly from deterministic workflow code.
4
Verify the evidence
Exercise a known fixture, then inspect workflow_completed for one correctly typed terminal row.

Before you start

Prerequisites and boundaries

A server-side TELEMETRY_API_KEY
Stable workflow and activity type names
A non-replayed boundary for external telemetry calls

Delivery setup

Install and initialize server-side

Import telemetry-sh in server-only code and initialize it once with process.env.TELEMETRY_API_KEY. Keep ingestion credentials out of browser bundles, client-visible environment variables, source control, logs, and exception messages.

temporal-install

npm installation

bash

npm install telemetry-sh

1Prepare one reusable server-side delivery client with bounded network behavior.
2Add the outcome event at the success, failure, retry, or timeout boundary.
3Send controlled fixtures and inspect the stored rows before enabling an alert.

Snippet

Start with one structured event

Add this shape where the workflow completes, fails, or retries. Then build the dashboard from real fields.

temporal

Temporal Workflow Observability event

javascript

await telemetry.log("workflow_completed", {
  workflow_type: info.workflowType,
  workflow_id: info.workflowId,
  run_id: info.runId,
  task_queue: info.taskQueue,
  status: "success",
  duration_ms: Date.now() - startedAt,
  business_outcome: result.category,
});

Event contract

workflow_type, workflow_id, run_id, and status

activity_type, attempt, queue_name, and duration_ms

error_type, business_outcome, and release

Implementation checkpoints

Checkpoint 1

Send Telemetry events from an activity or worker interceptor, not directly from deterministic workflow code.

Checkpoint 2

Keep the logical workflow ID stable while recording Temporal run IDs separately.

Checkpoint 3

Do not log workflow arguments, search attributes containing private data, or activity results.

Verification

Prove the event arrived

Run this after exercising known success and failure cases. Replace the fallback table name if your final event contract differs from the snippet.

temporal-verification

Temporal Workflow Observability verification query

sql

SELECT *
FROM workflow_completed
ORDER BY timestamp_utc DESC
LIMIT 20;

Confirm one terminal row per logical outcome, with the expected status, identifiers, units, and UTC time.

Inspect the inferred schema and verify that retries do not change field types or generate a new logical event ID.

Search the stored fields for credentials, raw payloads, prompts, private content, and unbounded error messages.

Exercise a provider timeout, ingestion rejection, and process shutdown before treating the dashboard as complete.

Implementation references

Review the event contract, data-safety guidance, and upstream primary documentation before enabling a new production path.

Background job recipes Correlation IDs Temporal TypeScript observability

Production boundary

Keep the outcome event small and recoverable

This pattern provides

A bounded, SQL-ready outcome beside the upstream workflow.
Stable fields for dashboards, alerts, and cross-event correlation.
A fixture-driven path for validating success, failure, retry, and timeout behavior.

This pattern does not provide

An OTLP exporter, automatic collection pipeline, or replacement for detailed traces and diagnostic logs.
Exactly-once delivery merely because the payload contains an event ID.
Permission to collect raw provider payloads, user content, credentials, or regulated data.

Delivery and idempotency Batching and shutdown Troubleshoot ingestion

Event schema starting points

Review the row grain, emit boundary, required types, privacy classes, example payload, and validation checklist before adapting a query or snippet to production.

Async reliability11 fields