The problem is that we don't know whether the process definition in the application is the same as the one already in the database. Without this information, we would end up either creating duplicate process definitions (bad) or overwriting process changes made outside of the application. (worse) Really, the lifecycle of a process definition will likely not be exactly the same as your application deployment cycle. This is an area we would definitely like to see improved, as would the JBPM team. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4027188#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...