Hello,
In order to have a form for a human task you can use three methods,
1. You can use the default ftl functionality from the console. As you have realised it is necessary to upload the ftl file to guvnor, if you are going to use the console, because the console gets the form from the gwt-server-console which renders the form based on the ftl found in guvnor.
2. You can use the default ftl functionality with your own application comunicating with gwt-console-server (as the console does) through the REST API of gwt-console-server. In this case you also need the ftl files in guvnor since the gwt-console-server will serve the rendered forms based on the ftl found in guvnor.
3. You can use only api without using the ftl functionality and managing task services by your own. So when you have a task you may display your own gui and call relevant api in order to complete the task etc. (see http://community.jboss.org/people/bpmn2user/blog/2011/04/03/jbpm5-human-task-api-usage-example )
In all cases there has to be a task service running.
Generally guvnor is a repository and manager of your resources and rules logic, so if you use only the jbpm5 api then not only you don't need to use ftl files but you can also ignore guvnor completely. However you can certainly use guvnor from your api as well, as great repository, to build your knowledge base and use it for managing resources, having versions, building extra rules etc.
I would appreciate any other ideas, comments etc thanks