# Task

One unit of distributed work: a single call to a function decorated with the distribute decorator. Tasks are stateless, so each call starts fresh.

Source: https://university.eugo.io/glossary/task

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Stateless by design: each call starts fresh, receives copies of its arguments, and shares nothing with your session. When that model is wrong, because setup is expensive and needs reusing, an actor is the alternative.

## Related terms

- [Actor](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/actor) — A distributed object that holds state across many calls. Created by applying the distribute decorator to a class rather than a function.
- [Future](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/future) — A handle to a result that does not exist yet. Calling a distributed function returns a future immediately, while the work happens elsewhere.
- [distribute decorator](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/distribute-decorator) — The eugo.hpc decorator that turns a function into a distributed task, or a class into an actor. A decorated call returns a future instead of a value.
- [Worker](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/worker) — A process on a compute node that executes tasks. Worker count, not node count, is what determines how many tasks run at once.