# The best workflow engine is a programming language

By Steven Van · 2026-08-27

The idea of orchestrating long-running, stateful logic on top of unreliable, stateless infrastructure isn't new.

[Vercel](<https://creatorstoolbox.com/tools/vercel>) has released Workflow SDK, a TypeScript library for writing durable, long-running workflows without standing up separate orchestration infrastructure. A function marked with the "use workflow" directive becomes an orchestrator; a function marked "use step" is a unit of durable, retryable side-effecting work. The compiler splits the file into workflow and client/step bundles, so the control flow of ordinary async/await, try/catch, Promise.all, loops and conditionals is what defines the graph, rather than a separately drawn DAG.

- Uncaught errors in a step retry automatically. Throwing FatalError stops retries, RetryableError sets a custom backoff, and fn.maxRetries tunes the count.

- A single createHook() primitive replaces Temporal's separate signals, queries and updates for getting data into and out of a running workflow.

- createWebhook() creates a callable URL inside a running workflow in one line, with no route or handler to deploy; the run parks until the URL is hit.

- The runtime talks to infrastructure through a single "World" interface covering storage, queuing, auth and streaming, so the backend is swappable: Redis or Kafka for streams, Postgres, Cassandra, the file system, Turso or Durable Objects for durability, and Vercel Queues, SQS or Cloudflare Queues for the queue.

Vercel maintains a first-party Postgres world, modelled on the open-source DBOS project, that uses Postgres alone for durability, queueing and streaming. More detail is in the [original announcement](<https://vercel.com/blog/the-best-workflow-engine-is-a-programming-language>).

[![](<https://assets.vercel.com/image/upload/contentful/image/e5382hct74si/3h6sJz0ibk8nxTTNDgLUfn/070193d70e4380485c2d47c9526eca89/image__30_.png>)](<https://vercel.com/blog/the-best-workflow-engine-is-a-programming-language>)

![Vercel](<https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=vercel.com&sz=128>)

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Sources

[Original source](<https://vercel.com/blog/the-best-workflow-engine-is-a-programming-language>)

[Read The best workflow engine is a programming language on Creators Toolbox](<https://creatorstoolbox.com/blog/vercel-the-best-workflow-engine-is-a-programming-language>)

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Canonical source: https://creatorstoolbox.com/blog/vercel-the-best-workflow-engine-is-a-programming-language