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

[vercel]

The latest updates on your projects. Learn more about Vercel for GitHub.

Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
temporal-documentation	Ready	Preview, Comment	Apr 24, 2026 6:18pm

[github-actions]

📖 Docs PR preview links

• Develop
  • Dotnet
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
  • Go
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
  • Java
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
      • Workflow basics
  • Php
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
  • Python
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
  • Ruby
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
  • Typescript
    • Best Practices
      • Debugging
    • Workflows
      • Versioning
• 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"?