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antigravity-skills-reference/skills/dbos-golang/references/comm-streaming.md

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---
title: Use Streams for Real-Time Data
impact: MEDIUM
impactDescription: Enables streaming results from long-running workflows
tags: communication, stream, real-time, channel
---
## Use Streams for Real-Time Data
Workflows can stream data to clients in real-time using `dbos.WriteStream`, `dbos.CloseStream`, and `dbos.ReadStream`/`dbos.ReadStreamAsync`. Useful for LLM output streaming or progress reporting.
**Incorrect (accumulating results then returning at end):**
```go
func processWorkflow(ctx dbos.DBOSContext, items []string) ([]string, error) {
var results []string
for _, item := range items {
result, _ := dbos.RunAsStep(ctx, func(ctx context.Context) (string, error) {
return processItem(item)
}, dbos.WithStepName("process"))
results = append(results, result)
}
return results, nil // Client must wait for entire workflow to complete
}
```
**Correct (streaming results as they become available):**
```go
func processWorkflow(ctx dbos.DBOSContext, items []string) (string, error) {
for _, item := range items {
result, err := dbos.RunAsStep(ctx, func(ctx context.Context) (string, error) {
return processItem(item)
}, dbos.WithStepName("process"))
if err != nil {
return "", err
}
dbos.WriteStream(ctx, "results", result)
}
dbos.CloseStream(ctx, "results") // Signal completion
return "done", nil
}
// Read the stream synchronously (blocks until closed)
handle, _ := dbos.RunWorkflow(ctx, processWorkflow, items)
values, closed, err := dbos.ReadStreamstring, "results")
```
**Async stream reading with channels:**
```go
ch, err := dbos.ReadStreamAsyncstring, "results")
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
for sv := range ch {
if sv.Err != nil {
log.Fatal(sv.Err)
}
if sv.Closed {
break
}
fmt.Println("Received:", sv.Value)
}
```
Key behaviors:
- A workflow may have any number of streams, each identified by a unique key
- Streams are immutable and append-only
- Writes from workflows happen exactly-once
- Streams are automatically closed when the workflow terminates
- `ReadStream` blocks until the workflow is inactive or the stream is closed
- `ReadStreamAsync` returns a channel of `StreamValue[R]` for non-blocking reads
Reference: [Workflow Streaming](https://docs.dbos.dev/golang/tutorials/workflow-communication#workflow-streaming)