Postgres transactions are a distributed systems superpower

Postgres transactions enable a powerful approach to durable workflows by co-locating workflow metadata and application data in the same database, allowing them to be updated atomically in a single transaction. This eliminates common distributed systems challenges like idempotency and atomicity by removing the window where partial failures can occur—either the workflow step and its checkpoint both commit together, or both roll back together. By leveraging Postgres transactions this way, developers can avoid complex application-level bookkeeping and ensure exactly-once execution semantics for critical operations.