temporalio / temporalio/sdk-java

Workflow.retry that takes a function to decide if retry is needed

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

Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Workflow.retry RetryOptions.doNotRetry is a list of strings. So any exception is converted to a string before matching. In many scenarios, the retry is based on a specific information in a specific exception down the chain or even on some other information within the workflow body.

Describe the solution you'd like
An API that takes a function (or lambda) that can execute random user provided logic to decide if retry is needed.

Additional context
This only works for retries from the workflow code. The service side retries have to rely on string matching in the current architecture. An activity already can decide itself that the error is not retryable by throwing an non-retryable ApplicationFailure.

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 by reviewing the Workflow.retry API and RetryOptions.doNotRetry behavior described in the issue, including how exceptions are converted to strings. Done means a workflow-side retry decision can use a user-provided function and inspect exception details, while service-side retries remain governed by the stated string-matching architecture.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
distributed-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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