docs: Serverless Workers documentation by lennessyy · Pull Request #4405 · temporalio/documentation

lennessyy · 2026-04-08T16:27:02Z

Summary

Documentation for Serverless Workers across four sections:

Evaluate (evaluate/development-production-features/serverless-workers/) — Benefits, use cases, comparison table, and interactive demo. The "should I use this?" page.
Encyclopedia (encyclopedia/workers/serverless-workers.mdx) — How invocation works (6-step flow with diagram), compute providers, WCI. Language-agnostic concepts.
Deploy guide (production-deployment/worker-deployments/serverless-workers/) — Step-by-step: write code, deploy Lambda, configure IAM, create version, set current, verify. Uses SDK tabs (Go only for now).
Go SDK reference (develop/go/workers/serverless-workers/) — lambdaworker package usage, connection config, Lambda-tuned defaults, OpenTelemetry.

Also: simplified run-worker-process.mdx, deleted cloud-worker.mdx (redirected), updated interactive demo to match deploy guide, added "Serverless Worker" to Vale terms.

Preview links

Evaluate

Encyclopedia

Serverless Workers

Deploy guide

Go SDK

Go SDK (refactored)

Run a Worker

Test plan

Build passes with no broken links or anchors
Interactive demo steps match the deploy guide
Redirects work for /develop/go/workers/cloud-worker and /evaluate/serverless-workers-demo

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

- Go SDK page: lambdaworker package usage, config, lifecycle - Deployment guide: end-to-end Lambda setup (provider-agnostic) - Interactive demo component for the Evaluate section - Sidebar entries for all three pages Updated deployment guide based on dogfooding against local server with temporal-auto-scaled-workers. Removed Cloud-specific language so the guide works for both Cloud and self-hosted deployments. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

vercel · 2026-04-08T16:27:14Z

The latest updates on your projects. Learn more about Vercel for GitHub.

Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
temporal-documentation	Error		Apr 9, 2026 10:15pm

github-actions · 2026-04-08T16:27:29Z

📖 Docs PR preview links

Develop
- Go SDK
  - Nexus
    - Feature Guide
  - Workers
    - Run a Worker
    - Serverless Workers
      - Serverless Workers on AWS Lambda
- Worker performance
Evaluate
- Serverless Workers
  - Interactive Demo
Production Deployment
- Worker deployments
  - Serverless Workers
    - AWS Lambda
Serverless Workers
Sticky Execution
Task Queues
Workers

…o/documentation into feat/serverless-worker

Point Go WorkerOptions links to pkg.go.dev reference instead of removed anchors on the simplified run-worker-process page. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Add deploy guide for serverless workers covering AWS Lambda deployment, including the serverless-workers index and aws-lambda pages under production-deployment/worker-deployments. Update sidebar navigation and set onBrokenLinks/onBrokenAnchors to warn for cross-PR references. Part of #4405. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Add Go SDK Serverless Workers documentation including the lambdaworker package guide for AWS Lambda, rewrite run-worker-process to focus on long-lived Workers, and remove cloud-worker (content folded in). Update sidebars, add redirect, and set broken links to warn for cross-PR references. Part of #4405. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Add the Evaluate section for Serverless Workers documentation: - Serverless Workers overview page - Interactive demo page with ServerlessWorkerDemo component - Sidebar entry under Features - Redirect from old demo URL - Change onBrokenLinks/onBrokenAnchors to 'warn' for incremental PRs Part 1 of 4, splitting PR #4405 into smaller PRs. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

lennessyy · 2026-04-08T23:08:31Z

+## Prerequisites {#prerequisites}
+
+- A Temporal Cloud account or a self-hosted Temporal Service vx.xx.x or later.
+  - Your Temporal Service frontend must be reachable from the Lambda execution environment. For Temporal Cloud, no additional configuration is needed. For self-hosted deployments on a private network, configure the Lambda function with [VPC access](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/configuration-vpc.html) to reach the Temporal frontend.


Right now, I see that we need to add specific dynamic config parameters in Temporal server to enable this feature. When we ship, do self-hosted or cloud users need to do anything to enable it?

In the same vein, the WCI component readme mentions a scaling algorithm. Is this something users need to worry about? If so, what are the considerations? If not, can we still give a brief explanation of how it works and expected scaling behavior?

lennessyy · 2026-04-08T23:10:34Z

+| `LambdaFunctionArn` | The ARN of the Lambda function that Temporal will invoke. |
+
+<!--
+TODO: Add the CloudFormation template once it's finalized.


In the UX design discussions we mentioned helping users create the roles using cloud formation templates. I haven't seen the template--is this still the plan?

lennessyy · 2026-04-08T23:20:17Z

@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ A Worker Program is the static code that defines the constraints of the Worker P
 - [How to run a development Worker using the TypeScript SDK](/develop/typescript/workers/run-worker-process#run-a-dev-worker)


The worker page is going to need a rewrite. With serverless workers, I think we need to update how users should think of this abstraction that we never quite defined well in the docs. Would love some product/engineering input on this question.

What is a worker?

We don't answer this question at all right now, and deflect to lower-level abstractions, which isn't very helpful and does not account for serverless workers:

In day-to-day conversations, the term Worker is used to denote either a Worker Program, a Worker Process, or a Worker Entity. Temporal documentation aims to be explicit and differentiate between them.

Maybe something like:

A Worker is the execution environment for your Workflows and Activities. It's where your application code actually runs within Temporal's architecture.

I want to

The comparison table lives on the evaluate page now. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

…K page Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

…ineBuffer is serverless-only Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

- Fix polling description: serverless workers still poll, the difference is lifecycle - Tone down operational overhead claims: customers still deploy and configure - Clarify long-running limitation applies to activities, not workflows Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: Serverless Workers - Go SDK pages (2/4) Add Go SDK Serverless Workers documentation including the lambdaworker package guide for AWS Lambda, rewrite run-worker-process to focus on long-lived Workers, and remove cloud-worker (content folded in). Update sidebars, add redirect, and set broken links to warn for cross-PR references. Part of #4405. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * docs: expand OTel section with context and links for serverless Go SDK page Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * docs: link worker defaults to Go SDK reference, clarify ShutdownDeadlineBuffer is serverless-only Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * docs: address review feedback on Go SDK pages - Replace ambiguous "Lambda deadline" with "configurable invocation deadline" on the AWS Lambda page (akhayam) - Rewrite tautological "serverless compute" intro on the Go SDK serverless landing page (smuneebahmad) Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> --------- Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: add Serverless Workers production deployment guide (3/4) Add deploy guide for serverless workers covering AWS Lambda deployment, including the serverless-workers index and aws-lambda pages under production-deployment/worker-deployments. Update sidebar navigation and set onBrokenLinks/onBrokenAnchors to warn for cross-PR references. Part of #4405. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * docs: address review feedback on Deploy guide - Rename TLS env vars to TEMPORAL_TLS_CLIENT_CERT_PATH and TEMPORAL_TLS_CLIENT_KEY_PATH (smuneebahmad) - Add HOME=/tmp env var to deploy command and env var table; needed for the SDK's config loader to resolve a user config directory in Lambda (smuneebahmad) - Include TEMPORAL_API_KEY in deploy command so the auth path is complete (smuneebahmad) - Remove --scaler-min-instances, --scaler-max-instances from create-version snippet (smuneebahmad) - Remove --ignore-missing-task-queues from set-current-version snippet (smuneebahmad) - Replace CloudFormation template stub with the real template from smuneebahmad, inline in a <details> block plus a downloadable file at /files/temporal-cloud-serverless-worker-role.yaml - Update IAM parameter table to match real template params (AssumeRoleExternalId, LambdaFunctionARNs, RoleName) - Add note flagging template is Cloud-scoped; self-hosted TBD - Add sample aws cloudformation create-stack usage - Use "invocation deadline" for consistency with Go SDK page Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> --------- Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: Serverless Workers - Evaluate pages (1/4) Add the Evaluate section for Serverless Workers documentation: - Serverless Workers overview page - Interactive demo page with ServerlessWorkerDemo component - Sidebar entry under Features - Redirect from old demo URL - Change onBrokenLinks/onBrokenAnchors to 'warn' for incremental PRs Part 1 of 4, splitting PR #4405 into smaller PRs. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * docs: address PM feedback on evaluate page - Fix polling description: serverless workers still poll, the difference is lifecycle - Tone down operational overhead claims: customers still deploy and configure - Clarify long-running limitation applies to activities, not workflows Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * docs: address review feedback on Evaluate pages - Reframe lifecycle description: Temporal invokes the Serverless Worker on demand (bchav, akhayam) - Clarify operational overhead: offload invocation and scaling, but deployments remain the user's responsibility (bchav) - Introduce "long-lived Workers" terminology and use consistently - Sharpen Lambda execution limit wording and Cloud Run callout (akhayam, bchav) - Remove Worker Versioning row from comparison table as too low-level (akhayam) - Remove --scaler-min-instances, --scaler-max-instances, and --ignore-missing-task-queues from demo CLI snippets (smuneebahmad) - Remove Min/Max Instances config fields from demo UI (smuneebahmad) Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> --------- Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

lennessyy and others added 5 commits April 6, 2026 13:43

docs: add aws env changes

80f2b82

Merge branch 'main' into feat/serverless-worker

2f43e3c

fix broken link

d3b375c

Merge branch 'main' into feat/serverless-worker

2623c52

lennessyy added 2 commits April 8, 2026 11:59

update deploy page

82feda6

Merge branch 'feat/serverless-worker' of https://github.com/temporali…

3646141

…o/documentation into feat/serverless-worker

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add diagram

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reorg worker pages

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docs: edit go pages

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Fix broken anchors after run-worker-process.mdx rewrite

beca780

Point Go WorkerOptions links to pkg.go.dev reference instead of removed anchors on the simplified run-worker-process page. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

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add evaluate content

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edit demo

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lennessyy changed the title ~~feat: serverless worker~~ docs: Serverless Workers documentation Apr 8, 2026

Merge branch 'main' into feat/serverless-worker

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lennessyy mentioned this pull request Apr 8, 2026

docs: Serverless Workers - Encyclopedia (4/4) #4415

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lennessyy mentioned this pull request Apr 8, 2026

docs: Serverless Workers - Deploy guide (3/4) #4416

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This was referenced Apr 8, 2026

docs: Serverless Workers - Evaluate pages (1/4) #4417

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docs: Serverless Workers - Go SDK pages (2/4) #4418

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lennessyy commented Apr 8, 2026

View reviewed changes

Remove differences section from encyclopedia page

1dedf89

The comparison table lives on the evaluate page now. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

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Fix Worker invocation wording in encyclopedia

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Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

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docs: expand OTel section with context and links for serverless Go SD…

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…K page Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

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docs: link worker defaults to Go SDK reference, clarify ShutdownDeadl…

68aba0d

…ineBuffer is serverless-only Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

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		@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ A Worker Program is the static code that defines the constraints of the Worker P
		- [How to run a development Worker using the TypeScript SDK](/develop/typescript/workers/run-worker-process#run-a-dev-worker)

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