Standalone Activity client by dandavison · Pull Request #950 · temporalio/cli

dandavison · 2026-02-23T16:36:36Z

What was changed

Implement all Standalone Activity client commands.

$ temporal activity <tab>
cancel          -- Request cancellation of a Standalone Activity (Experimental)
complete        -- Mark an activity as completed successfully with a result
count           -- Count Standalone Activities matching a query (Experimental)
describe        -- Show detailed info for a Standalone Activity (Experimental)
execute         -- Start a new Standalone Activity and wait for its result (Experimental)
fail            -- Mark an Activity as completed unsuccessfully with an error
list            -- List Standalone Activities matching a query (Experimental)
pause           -- Pause an Activity
reset           -- Reset an Activity
result          -- Wait for and output the result of a Standalone Activity (Experimental)
start           -- Start a new Standalone Activity (Experimental)
terminate       -- Forcefully end a Standalone Activity (Experimental)
unpause         -- Unpause an Activity
update-options  -- Change the values of options affecting a running Activity

Why?

Standalone Activity is a new product feature which the CLI will support.

Checklist

How was this tested

Integration tests in PR
Manual testing against Python worker

Any docs updates needed?
Yes. https://docs.temporal.io/cli/activity must be updated.

dandavison · 2026-02-24T17:00:26Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.activity.go

+//
+// The per-request timeout matches the SDK's PollActivityResult implementation.
+// Unlike the SDK, we retry at the application level on per-request timeout
+// since we don't have the SDK's gRPC-level retry interceptor.


I don't like this. It doesn't need to block this PR, but it's an imperfect emulation of what the SDK is doing, which will diverge over time leading to more bugs. I am proposing that we introduce new poll methods in the Go SDK for Update and Activity that expose the raw proto responses to the CLI.

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:25:31Z

go.mod

 module github.com/temporalio/cli

-go 1.26.0
+go 1.25.5


Why did you downgrade Go?

That was unintentional; the PR had incorrect dependency changes. Fixed now.

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:25:41Z

go.mod

+	go.temporal.io/sdk v1.39.1-0.20260205231726-1a609f101fd5
 	go.temporal.io/sdk/contrib/envconfig v0.1.0
-	go.temporal.io/server v1.30.0
+	go.temporal.io/server v1.31.0-150.0


Use 151 please.

Yes sorry the dependencies in this PR weren't finalized. I will use 151. But we'll have to relax the validator rules:

cli(standalone-activity-client) go run ./internal/cmd/validate-server-version/ Found server dependency: go.temporal.io/server@v1.31.0-151.2 ✓ Version is a valid tagged version Latest GitHub release: v1.29.3 Server version: v1.31.x Latest release: v1.29.x Max allowed: v1.30.x Error: server dependency version v1.31.0-151.2 exceeds allowed range Max allowed: v1.30.x (latest release + 1 minor) Latest release: v1.29.3 exit status 1

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:26:20Z

go.mod

-	go.temporal.io/sdk v1.38.0
+	github.com/temporalio/ui-server/v2 v2.45.0
+	go.temporal.io/api v1.62.1
+	go.temporal.io/sdk v1.39.1-0.20260205231726-1a609f101fd5


Assuming that this will be bumped to a stable release before merging.

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:30:17Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+        short: r
+        description: |
+          Run ID.
+          If not set, targets the latest run.


Some commands the run ID is for the activity and for others for the workflow. We need to make sure we print out what the run ID refers to.

Changed help text as follows:

--run-id string Run ID. For workflow Activities (when --workflow-id is provided), this is the Workflow Run ID. For Standalone Activities, this is the Activity Run ID.

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:31:12Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+      - name: activity-id
+        type: string
+        short: a
+        description: Activity ID.


Needs to be called out that this applies to either an ID of an activity within a workflow execution or a standalone activity execution ID.

Changed to

description: | Activity ID. This may be the ID of an Activity invoked by a Workflow, or of a Standalone Activity.

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:31:55Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+        required: true
+      - name: task-queue
+        type: string
+        description: Activity Task queue.


Why is Task capitalized and queue isn't?

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:35:00Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+      - name: heartbeat-timeout
+        type: duration
+        description: |
+          Maximum time between successful Worker heartbeats.


Also worth calling out that when expired, the current activity attempt fails.

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:48:28Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+          JSON values.
+          Can be passed multiple times.
+          See https://docs.temporal.io/visibility.
+      - name: headers


We don't expose this on workflow start or signal, we shouldn't for activity start either.

Actually, workflow headers were added recently: #883

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:50:57Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+      ```
+
+      Activity code cannot see or respond to terminations. To
+      perform clean-up work, use `temporal activity cancel` instead.


This isn't accurate because if you activity is backing off it's the same as terminate. Cancelation only propagates to the activity if there's an active attempt and the activity is heartbeating.

Thanks. Deleted second sentence so that it just says

Activity code cannot see or respond to terminations.

bergundy · 2026-02-24T17:51:49Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+  - name: temporal activity start
+    summary: Start a new Standalone Activity (Experimental)
+    description: |
+      Start a new Standalone Activity. Outputs the Activity ID and


Why are the line lengths so short in this file?

Not sure, but it's like that on main.

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

bergundy

Pre-approving it since the changes requested are minimal and I trust you to address before merging.

dandavison

Thanks for the review @bergundy. All comments should be addressed. I will merge when CI is passing.

dandavison · 2026-02-24T21:48:15Z

go.mod

+	go.temporal.io/sdk v1.39.1-0.20260205231726-1a609f101fd5
 	go.temporal.io/sdk/contrib/envconfig v0.1.0
-	go.temporal.io/server v1.30.0
+	go.temporal.io/server v1.31.0-150.0


Yes sorry the dependencies in this PR weren't finalized. I will use 151. But we'll have to relax the validator rules:

cli(standalone-activity-client) go run ./internal/cmd/validate-server-version/ Found server dependency: go.temporal.io/server@v1.31.0-151.2 ✓ Version is a valid tagged version Latest GitHub release: v1.29.3 Server version: v1.31.x Latest release: v1.29.x Max allowed: v1.30.x Error: server dependency version v1.31.0-151.2 exceeds allowed range Max allowed: v1.30.x (latest release + 1 minor) Latest release: v1.29.3 exit status 1

dandavison · 2026-02-24T22:00:03Z

go.mod

 module github.com/temporalio/cli

-go 1.26.0
+go 1.25.5


That was unintentional; the PR had incorrect dependency changes. Fixed now.

dandavison · 2026-02-24T22:24:48Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+      ```
+
+      Activity code cannot see or respond to terminations. To
+      perform clean-up work, use `temporal activity cancel` instead.


Thanks. Deleted second sentence so that it just says

Activity code cannot see or respond to terminations.

dandavison · 2026-02-24T22:27:50Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+      - name: activity-id
+        type: string
+        short: a
+        description: Activity ID.


Changed to

description: | Activity ID. This may be the ID of an Activity invoked by a Workflow, or of a Standalone Activity.

dandavison · 2026-02-25T00:49:42Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+        short: r
+        description: |
+          Run ID.
+          If not set, targets the latest run.


Changed help text as follows:

--run-id string Run ID. For workflow Activities (when --workflow-id is provided), this is the Workflow Run ID. For Standalone Activities, this is the Activity Run ID.

dandavison · 2026-02-25T00:52:48Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+          Maximum time an Activity task can stay in a task
+          queue before a Worker picks it up.


dandavison · 2026-02-25T01:31:10Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+      - name: heartbeat-timeout
+        type: duration
+        description: |
+          Maximum time between successful Worker heartbeats.


dandavison · 2026-02-25T01:31:45Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+          JSON values.
+          Can be passed multiple times.
+          See https://docs.temporal.io/visibility.
+      - name: headers


Actually, workflow headers were added recently: #883

dandavison · 2026-02-25T01:48:29Z

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

+  - name: temporal activity start
+    summary: Start a new Standalone Activity (Experimental)
+    description: |
+      Start a new Standalone Activity. Outputs the Activity ID and


Not sure, but it's like that on main.

internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml

The SDK (v1.39.0+) auto-enables TLS when API-key credentials are set, unless ConnectionOptions.TLSDisabled is true. The envconfig package (v0.1.0) predates this field and does not set it when TLS is explicitly disabled, so the SDK re-enables TLS despite the user's --tls=false. Bridge the gap by setting TLSDisabled in the CLI after profile.ToClientOptions() when the profile has TLS explicitly disabled. Bump cliext SDK dependency to v1.40.0 The cliext module was on go.temporal.io/sdk v1.32.1 while the root module uses v1.40.0. This caused the ConnectionOptions.TLSDisabled field (added in v1.39.0) to be unresolved when editing cliext.

dandavison force-pushed the standalone-activity-client branch 6 times, most recently from 4ccb9d7 to 14ea604 Compare February 23, 2026 20:20

dandavison marked this pull request as ready for review February 23, 2026 22:00

dandavison requested review from a team as code owners February 23, 2026 22:00

dandavison requested review from bergundy and fretz12 February 23, 2026 22:00

dandavison commented Feb 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

bergundy reviewed Feb 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

bergundy approved these changes Feb 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

dandavison commented Feb 25, 2026

View reviewed changes

dandavison force-pushed the standalone-activity-client branch 4 times, most recently from 4d7ad43 to f2a40b6 Compare February 25, 2026 21:59

dandavison added 2 commits February 25, 2026 16:59

Add standalone activity client commands

93a511e

dandavison force-pushed the standalone-activity-client branch from f2a40b6 to 731c861 Compare February 25, 2026 22:00

		Maximum time an Activity task can stay in a task
		queue before a Worker picks it up.

Conversation

dandavison commented Feb 23, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

What was changed

Why?

Checklist

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

bergundy left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

dandavison left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

dandavison commented Feb 23, 2026 •

edited

Loading