AI coding agents are transforming how we build software. But when it comes to writing specific SDK code, like Temporal’s, they don’t always get it right. For the most part, models haven’t fully internalized Temporal best practices. New SDK features ship faster than training data updates. And traversing documentation is token-intensive, so agents often don’t read as much as they should. This leads to code that falls short of what a domain expert would write.
Today we’re releasing the Temporal Developer Skill in Public Preview. It offers authoritative, distilled Temporal development guidance that loads directly into your coding agent’s context, on demand.
What it does#
The Skill gives your AI coding agent expert-level knowledge of Temporal’s programming model. It covers Workflow determinism rules, Activity patterns, retry policies, error handling, testing strategies, Worker configuration, versioning, and common gotchas — the things that usually take experience to get right.
It works with any agent that supports Skills. Only a small metadata footprint (~100 tokens) loads at session start. The full guidance activates automatically when the agent detects you’re working on Temporal code.
80% of the content is language-agnostic, so the Skill is valuable to every Temporal developer using a coding agent. SDK-specific guidance is available today for Python, TypeScript, and Go, with Java, .NET, Ruby, and PHP following in the coming weeks.
Get started#
There are a few ways to install the Skill:
Claude Code Plugin (recommended — includes auto-updates):
/plugin marketplace add temporalio/agent-skills
Then open the plugin manager, select the marketplace and install temporal-developer.
npx skills (works with Cline and other agents):
npx skills add <https://github.com/temporalio/skill-temporal-developer>
Manual:
git clone <https://github.com/temporalio/skill-temporal-developer.git>
You’ll then usually have to restart your agent for it to take effect.
What’s next#
The Skill is useful today, and it will keep getting better. We’re expanding SDK language coverage, building an eval pipeline to iterate on quality, and working on a variety of other Skills to help with things like Temporal operations and CLI usage.
In the meantime, tell us what’s working, what’s not, and what you’d like to see:
- GitHub — issues, PRs, and suggestions
- Community Slack — #topic-ai channel
Also, keep an eye on docs.temporal.io/with-ai to see all of Temporal’s AI-assisted development tools in one place as they roll out.