Update docs to refine explanations for non-determinism

[flippedcoder]

What does this PR do?

Some pages in the docs need to be updated so that determinism is better understood. Right now we say that Temporal is deterministic when really only Workflows are deterministic and Activities handle non-determinism operations.

Notes to reviewers

┆Attachments: EDU-6219 Update docs to refine explanations for non-determinism

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
temporal-documentation	Ready	Preview, Comment	May 1, 2026 7:42pm

[github-actions]

📖 Docs PR preview links

• Develop
  • Dotnet
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
      • Workflow basics
  • Go
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
      • Workflow basics
  • Java
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
      • Workflow basics
  • Php
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
      • Workflow Basics
  • Python
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
      • Workflow basics
  • Ruby
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
  • Rust
    • Workflows
      • Workflow basics
  • Typescript
    • Best Practices
      • Debugging
    • Workflows
      • Workflow basics
• Encyclopedia
  • Retry Policies
• Evaluate
  • Why Temporal
• Workflow
• Workflow Definition

[cdavisafc]

Hi @flippedcoder - thanks so much for getting this ball rolling.

I'd like to draw your attention to a few comments in this doc - in particular, the ones around how LLMs pattern match rather than understand. I don't think it is enough to say "workflows are deterministic. activities are not"

I know that makes the task tricker - which is what I was poking at a bit with my suggestion that perhaps we take a crack at explaining replay without that word.

[flippedcoder]

Hi @flippedcoder - thanks so much for getting this ball rolling.

I'd like to draw your attention to a few comments in this doc - in particular, the ones around how LLMs pattern match rather than understand. I don't think it is enough to say "workflows are deterministic. activities are not"

I know that makes the task tricker - which is what I was poking at a bit with my suggestion that perhaps we take a crack at explaining replay without that word.

@cdavisafc Thanks for sharing this! I see what you mean about that little nuance. So I went ahead and took a stab at explaining replay here.

It gave me an idea of a direction to go in. Maybe instead of just saying "workflows are deterministic. activities are not", what if we said something like "Workflows are deterministic, but the Activities they execute don't need to be"?

[Sushisource]

Overall I think this helps a lot. Thank you!

I find it a bit odd that we call out LLM calls separately from other API calls (they're not any meaningfully different for the purposes of these docs). I kinda understand why, maybe not everyone in the audience understands that, but it also kinda makes it seem like we don't understand that, heh.

[brianmacdonald-temporal]

Primarily did some wordsmithing -- I particularly wanted to lighten that "do not" bullet list on the workflow basics page. I was able to flip most of them from "don't do X; do Y instead" to "do Y instead of X."

Not all the SDKs have a "don't do this" list on the workflow basics page, but Python and .NET both do, and those could probably use a polish.

[brianmacdonald-temporal]

Just a little copyedit polishing.