Hatchet and Temporal supply durable tasks, waits, retries, cancellation, and child work for a custom controller. Agent registry, chat mapping, prompt delivery, and runtime cleanup remain application code. Hatchet is simpler to self-host; Temporal offers richer live workflow interaction.

Durable execution engines as the controller's core

Both are self-hostable candidates for a trusted worker behind the provisional communication adapter. They execute code we write; neither is a ready-made organizational agent team or a prompt protocol.

Hatchet v1 records tasks and their runs, supports event triggers, durable waits correlated to a run, child tasks, retries, concurrency limits, and run cancellation. Its documented self-host setup can use PostgreSQL alone for simple workloads, and the project is MIT licensed. A follow-up from chat can be translated into a correlated event. Hatchet's comparison guide states that Temporal-style synchronous validated Updates do not have an equivalent; they need an event plus application logic. Overview, Hatchet's Temporal migration guide.

Temporal preserves Workflow history, waits for Signals or Updates, and executes external calls in Activities with retry and cancellation semantics. Self-hosting adds a Temporal Service and persistence/visibility infrastructure. Activity cancellation reaches the worker when it heartbeats; the worker must still stop a launched agent or sandbox. Activity execution and cancellation, self-hosting.

For either engine, our code must define agent configurations, authorize requests from the human space, map discussion/task/session/run/runtime IDs, launch a runtime, deliver a prompt to its agent protocol, report artifacts, and reconcile an uncertain external stop or write. Hatchet's PostgreSQL-only simple setup suggests a smaller operating footprint; Temporal's Signals, Queries, and Updates offer more ways to address a live workflow. This is a documentation-based architectural comparison, not a benchmark or pilot.

Windmill is a broader script-and-flow operational interface; Restate and DBOS are additional durable execution candidates. Their licensing and deployment tradeoffs merit comparison if neither Hatchet nor Temporal fits the actual run model.