Well it seems like when I create the process definition by parsing the xml definition everything works fine. What I was trying to do was programmatically create my process definition. By creating a new process definition object and adding nodes and transitions to it. Note that in both scenarios the resulting instances are identical except for the fact that in one case the instance variables a transient and thus not saved. Any thoughts on why this might be happening ? There arent any examples on creating a ProcessDefinition programmatically. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4135954#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...