Temporal vs Trigger.dev

Temporal

Waits of any length with a timeout survive worker restarts and deploys. No reviewer inbox, notifications or routing, so the human side is all your code.

Trigger.dev

Tokens complete from a backend, a pre-signed callback URL or the browser with a token scoped to one waitpoint. 10-minute default timeout on tokens.

Temporal

1. Put the decision in a typed Signal payload (approver, decision, comments, timestamp) instead of a bare boolean
2. Always wait with a timeout and treat the timeout path as a rejection or an escalation on purpose
3. Use the workflow ID as the approval ID, so the reviewer's tool only needs one value to send the Signal
4. Use an Update instead of a Signal when the approver's tool needs an acknowledgement back
5. Expect ResourceExhausted under load and let the SDK retry it, since signals are throttled last

Trigger.dev

1. Pass an explicit timeout to wait.createToken() and handle ok: false as a timeout
2. Use an idempotency key when creating the token so a retried step doesn't send the reviewer a second request
3. Give the browser the publicAccessToken, never the secret key, and don't call token.url from client code
4. Tag tokens with the user or task ID so pending approvals can be listed per reviewer
5. Start the MCP server with --readonly when the agent only needs to inspect runs