If you don't want changes to a process or task instance saved or persisted to the db when you close the JbpmContext, you could try calling jbpmContext.setRollbackOnly(); When the JbpmContext is then closed, it should roll back any changes made. That's how I do it anyway, and it works. As for the save method, I think it is used when creating a new process instance. If I remember correctly, in the jbpm-console source code, when it creates a new process instance, there is a piece of code that goes as follows: // Nothing else saves the process, so we must | jbpmContext.save(processInstance); Not sure why they said 'Nothing else saves the process, so we must'. Perhaps because it's a new process instance? Hope this helps. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4150979#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...