Set up your organization for ProcessOS Harness
Before you install anything, set your organization up to succeed with ProcessOS Harness. This page covers the organizational preparation. For the technical setup, see install ProcessOS Harness and configure a project.
ProcessOS Harness is a new way of running projects, not a new feature in a familiar tool. The interaction model is unfamiliar, and the early access release assumes a trained builder. The two steps below are the intended path for early access, not optional extras.
Run your first project with a partner or a Camunda FDE
Run your first ProcessOS project together with an enabled partner or a Camunda Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), rather than on your own.
The first journey is where an unfamiliar interaction model costs the most. Someone who has already completed an engagement can tell a recoverable result from a dead end, which saves you iterations. Once your team has one project behind it, later projects are far less dependent on outside support.
Contact your Camunda account team to arrange this.
Complete the Camunda Academy overview course
Complete the ProcessOS Harness overview course in Camunda Academy before you start a project.
Academy is where you build the capability to work with ProcessOS Harness, including the mindset shift that working with non-deterministic AI output requires. This documentation is written for a builder who has already done that, and it's here to keep you unblocked rather than to teach the approach from scratch.
Treat the overview course as a prerequisite for your first project.
Plan the effort
ProcessOS Harness runs many agent iterations. Plan for six to eight hours for one journey from discovery through implementation.
Token cost
A journey has a real token cost that depends on the scenario:
| Scenario | Token cost (USD) |
|---|---|
| Explorative run, small use case | 300 to 600 |
| Lift-and-shift, medium-sized process | 800 to 1,500+ |
| AI transformation, medium-to-large process | 1,000 to 2,000+ |
Treat these ranges as planning inputs rather than fixed prices. The following factors influence the cost:
- Model: For good results with ProcessOS, we recommend using a capable model, such as Opus or a comparable model. Pricing varies by model.
- Process complexity and size.
- Discovery input: Its size, format, scope, and quality. For example, extracting a process from images in a PDF costs more than reading text-based files, such as BPMN files.
- Review iterations: The number of iterations required to reach an agreed-upon result.
- Transformation tier: A lift-and-shift transformation costs less than a radical transformation.
SME involvement
Involve your SMEs early. ProcessOS Harness changes their role from main contributor to reviewer, which reduces their total effort, but they still need to be available at the review gates in each phase. A project stalls when a review cycle has no reviewer.