temporalio / temporalio/sdk-java

Subsequent MutableSideEffect calls inside one Workflow Task may explode with non-determinism on replay

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bug
Dominant language
Java
Stars
433
Forks
249
Avg merge
5d 6h
Merged PRs (30d)
26

Description

Actual Behavior

Consider a workflow that has 3 calls to the same ID back to back
...
encodedValue1 := workflow.MutableSideEffect(ctx, "id", ...)
encodedValue2 := workflow.MutableSideEffect(ctx, "id", ...)
encodedValue3 := workflow.MutableSideEffect(ctx, "id", ...)
...
And say encodedValue1==encodedValue2 and encodedValue3 are different on the original run.
This makes 2 markers will be in history.
On replay the marker created by the third mutable side effect call will be applied to a second call instead causing a non-deterministic replay.

Context

GoSDK: https://github.com/temporalio/sdk-go/issues/1014

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at the Java SDK implementation of workflow.MutableSideEffect and reproduce the three-call sequence described in the issue, using the GoSDK issue as context. Trace how markers are matched during replay; the fix is complete when repeated calls with the same ID replay deterministically without assigning a later marker to the wrong call.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
backend, distributed-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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