# Built-in durability: Introducing Workflow Development Kit

By Steven Van · 2025-10-23

Vercel's open source Workflow Development Kit lets TypeScript functions pause for months and resume after crashes or deploys, no queues required.

Vercel has released the **Workflow Development Kit (WDK)**, an open source TypeScript framework that adds durability to async functions without requiring message queues, retry logic, or a persistence layer to be built by hand.

- Two directives, "use workflow" and "use step", turn an ordinary async function into a durable workflow made up of steps that persist progress and retry automatically on failure.

- Workflows can pause with a sleep call for minutes or months, or pause on a webhook until an external event (like a payment confirmation) arrives, all without consuming resources while waiting.

- Every step, input, output, pause, and error is recorded in an event log, viewable through an included CLI and web UI for tracing runs and failures.

- Execution environments are called Worlds: a Local World runs workflows without provisioning infrastructure during development, a Vercel World handles persistence and routing automatically in production, and the framework is portable to other runtimes via custom Worlds, including a published reference Postgres World.

Vercel positions WDK for AI agents that need to pause between API calls, RAG pipelines that must survive crashes during long-running processing, and commerce systems waiting on user confirmation over days. Read the [full announcement](<https://vercel.com/blog/introducing-workflow>) on [Vercel](<https://creatorstoolbox.com/tools/vercel>)'s blog.

[![](<https://assets.vercel.com/image/upload/contentful/image/e5382hct74si/6NWvcWi52KPA9CfEIxCwyK/b203d2e9f5be1f49661b20d658b82284/OG_Card_Template.png>)](<https://vercel.com/blog/introducing-workflow>)

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[Original source](<https://vercel.com/blog/introducing-workflow>)

[Read Built-in durability: Introducing Workflow Development Kit on Creators Toolbox](<https://creatorstoolbox.com/blog/vercel-built-in-durability-introducing-workflow-development-kit>)

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Canonical source: https://creatorstoolbox.com/blog/vercel-built-in-durability-introducing-workflow-development-kit