First of all, I'm a great fan of jBPM and its flexibility. Caused to this flexibility custom requirements can often be solved in different ways.

I'm using a start-task to assign the initial actor to a swimlane. Since the process is started by an ESB-event (e.g. user orders a new product via a service) the start-task should not be displayed in the user's task list (no further input or activity is required at this point). In this case, I immediately end the task-instance via an action handler (task-assign event). Is this a proper solution or rather an anti-pattern?

Is it correct that the start-task is also indented to collect/define the process initial variables? I find it helpful, to see the required variables within the start-task definition. But these initial variables could also be assigned to a process instance directly while starting it (as I mentioned before, the process is started by another service).

I know not very high-level technical questions; rather low-level patterns questions.

Thanks
Thomas