[Bug] Using async functions degrades performance

[c0sx]

What are you really trying to do?

Hi, I have a workflow like dsl-interpreter from sample and I found that my workflow is slow.

Describe the bug

For some reason using async functions in workflows is drastically slower than sync functions. Could you help me?

I have 2 identical workflows (synthetic examples), the difference only in using async in functions:

// sync workflow
async function run() {
  const iters = () => 0;
  const condition = (iters) => iters < 10_000;
  const incr = (iters) => iters + 1;
  const out = (iters) => iters;

  let i = iters();

  while (condition(i)) {
    i = incr(i);
  }

  return out(i);
}

// async workflow
async function run() {
  const iters = async () => 0;
  const condition = (iters) => iters < 10_000;
  const incr = async (iters) => iters + 1;
  const out = async (iters) => iters;

  let i = await iters();

  while (condition(i)) {
    i = await incr(i);
  }

  return await out(i);
}

My worker and client

// worker.js
const path = require('path');

const { Worker } = require('@temporalio/worker');

async function main() {
  const worker = await Worker.create({
    workflowsPath: path.join(__dirname, './workflows.js'),
    taskQueue: 'hello-javascript',
  });

  await worker.run();
}

main().catch((err) => {
  console.error(err);
  process.exit(1);
});

// client.js
const { Client, Connection } = require('@temporalio/client');

const { run } = require('./workflows');

async function main() {
  const connection = await Connection.connect({});

  const client = new Client({
    connection,
  });

  console.time('client'); // start timer

  const result = await client.workflow.execute(run, {
    taskQueue: 'hello-javascript',
    workflowId: 'my-business-id',
    args: ['Temporal'],
  });

  console.timeEnd('client'); // end timer
  console.log(result);
}

main().catch((err) => {
  console.error(err);
  process.exit(1);
});

And I have this results

Sync workflow	Async workflow
25-30ms	350-400ms

Environment/Versions

• OS and processor: M3 Mac
• Temporal Version:

temporal -v
temporal version 1.0.0 (Server 1.24.2, UI 2.28.0)

• SDK: typescript-sdk: 1.10.3

• Are you using Docker or Kubernetes or building Temporal from source?
  I installed temporal from brew