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Glossary

Short Dex vocabulary. Prefer these terms over legacy Workflow/State names.

Attribute

Durable typed variable on a Flow (optionally indexed for search).

Channel

Durable message pipe for external or internal communication.

Condition

A wait unit (timer, channel, combinations) returned from WaitFor.

Continue-as-new

Start a fresh run carrying state forward so history stays bounded.

dexcli

Homebrew-installed CLI that runs local Temporal + Dex Server + Dex Web.

Execute

Step method that runs after WaitFor completes (or immediately if there is no wait).

Flow

Durable Execution program: Steps + Attributes + Channels + RPCs.

Flow ID

Application-assigned identity for a Flow execution.

InvokeRPC

Client API to call a Flow RPC handler on the Worker.

Locking

Serializing access to Attributes for Steps/RPCs.

Movement

Decision to go to another Step (or complete/fail).

Reset

Jump a Flow back to an earlier Step after a fix.

RPC

Worker handler for external read/write against a running Flow.

Run ID

Engine-assigned ID for a particular Flow run.

Step

Unit of durable control flow with optional WaitFor + Execute.

Step execution

One invocation instance of a Step type (step_type + number).

Timer

Durable sleep condition that resumes a waiting Step.

WaitFor

Step method that registers durable wait Conditions before Execute.

Worker

Process hosting Flow definitions and handling WaitFor/Execute/RPC.