Saga Pattern Architecture Diagram Template

What this template is for

A saga pattern architecture diagram shows how a long-running distributed transaction is composed of local transactions in multiple services, with compensations to undo earlier steps if a later one fails. This template lays out the canonical orchestrated saga: an orchestrator coordinates a forward path (order → payment → inventory → shipping), and a compensation path reverses any committed steps when a downstream failure happens (release inventory → refund → cancel order). Use it to design a distributed transaction, document the rollback semantics, or explain why ACID can't span microservices and why saga is the answer.

When to use this template

• Design a distributed transaction spanning multiple microservices.
• Explain why a single ACID transaction can't span services.
• Document the compensation actions for each step in your saga.
• Plan retry vs compensation policies for transient failures.
• Trace where a saga got stuck — between which two steps.
• Compare orchestrated saga against choreographed (event-driven) saga.

How to use it

1. 1Start with the orchestrator at the top — it drives the saga.
2. 2Draw the forward path as a horizontal chain of local transactions.
3. 3Add a Done node at the end of the forward path for the happy outcome.
4. 4Draw the compensation row below — one compensation per forward step (except the last).
5. 5Connect each forward step down to its compensation with a dashed 'on failure' arrow.
6. 6Chain compensations right-to-left to show rollback order.

Quick example