Project and process

Not everything gets finished. A project has a goal and will be done one day — the online shop launches, the office gets renovated. A process is a mapped operation that should keep running: handling orders, monthly accounting, office cleaning, onboarding a new colleague. Its steps repeat, and the aim is not 100 % but that nothing is left overdue.

	🎯 Project	🔁 Process
Aim	finish	keep running
Map apex	% done ring	N on time · M overdue · last run
Map overview	Overall progress	Run health
When everything is done	All done → Archive offer	never — a process does not finish
"Not moving"	a step untouched for 14+ days	process steps are not reported (they describe the process)
Archive	archived	process ended

Otherwise both maps are the same: nodes, assignees, deadlines, rules, sharing and the assistant work unchanged.

Where to find it

New project offers two tiles at the top: 🎯 Project — I want to finish something. The tasks get done and the project goes to the archive. and 🔁 Process — I want something to keep running. Steps repeat, nothing gets finished. Project is the default, so if you don't care about styles, there is nothing new to choose.

killbottleneck.com

New project — Project / Process tiles. For a process the field is called “What should keep running”.

In the map the style shows as a chip next to the title (🎯 Project / 🔁 Process); on the home page a process card carries 🔁 Process and whether it runs on time, how many steps are overdue, or that it is a description only. Once you have at least one process, the home page shows an All · Projects · Processes switch above the projects (with counts); with Processes the sections read My processes and Organization processes. The choice is remembered. In Tasks a process carries 🔁 Process next to its name, its rows read process goal and process step, and a recurring step shows its rhythm (🔁 every Monday).

How to: create a process

1. New project → 🔁 Process, write what should keep running (e.g. Order handling) and Create process. Or on the From template tab pick a template marked 🔁 process template — for example Weekly office operations with three recurring steps.
2. In the map click Add step (in the toolbar or + on the apex). The New process step window asks for a name and an optional recurrence. With a rhythm the step gets its first due date (First due date: Mon, 26/10); without one the step describes the process — nobody keeps an eye on it, and that's fine.
3. Add a checklist to a step with Add sub-step on the step's card (straight away, no window).

killbottleneck.com

A process map — instead of a percentage the apex shows whether the process runs on time; cards carry their rhythm in words.

A step's rhythm

In the step's window (category Assignment) Recurrence is a switch Does not repeat / Daily / Weekly / Monthly:

• Weekly — pick the weekdays (Mon–Sun), e.g. Tue and Thu. The default is the deadline's weekday.
• Monthly — on day N of the month; picking the day moves the deadline to the nearest such day.
• every N-th — every 2 weeks, every 3 days, every 2 months (1–4).

A step without a deadline gets its first occurrence when you switch the rhythm on. The rhythm sticks to the original deadline: every Monday stays a Monday, an even week stays even. The card then shows 🔁 every Monday, 🔁 every weekday or 🔁 every 2 weeks: Tue, Thu — and everyone who can see the map sees that sentence, including a reader who can't see the map's rules.

killbottleneck.com

A step's rhythm — weekdays, day of the month, every N-th. The note below says what happens when you tick it off.

Under the hood recurrence is still an ordinary map rule (see Goal settings → Recurrence) — you will see it in the map's Rules.

What happens when you tick a step off

A recurring step you tick off runs and comes straight back:

• status back to To do, the deadline to the next occurrence of the rhythm (missed occurrences are skipped),
• sub-steps (deeper ones too) and their tasks back to To do — the checklist starts over,
• the “when I'll work on it” plan is cleared — it belonged to the last occurrence,
• the reminder for the deadline stays and moves with it.

The app says so in a message, e.g. "Stock check" ran (late) — Next due Fri, 30/10 · 2 sub-steps reset.

Run health

In a process the map's Overview shows a Run health card instead of Overall progress: how many recurring steps are on time and overdue, the number of runs in the last 30 days and when the process last ran. Below it a table of steps — rhythm, last run, runs in 90 days, of which late and what is due now.

killbottleneck.com

Run health — on time / overdue, runs and a table of steps instead of a percentage.

It is calculated from the map's change history (kept for 400 days). Steps without a rhythm are not counted. An occurrence nobody completed counts only while it is open and overdue.

Switching styles

A project can become a process and back at any time: ⋮ More actions → Change to process (or Change to project). The window says what changes — "% done" and the archive offer after completion disappear. Instead you will see whether the process runs on time. — and that steps and deadlines stay the same. Only the map's owner can switch. Recurring steps repeat in both styles; in a process they also reset their sub-steps when they repeat, back in a project they no longer do (the recurrence rules adjust by themselves, both ways).

A process goes to the archive as End the process (to the archive); the Archive marks it process ended.

Processes in Organization and My day

• Organization has a Processes tile (keep running) and a Processes card sorted by the number of overdue steps: Overdue · On time · Last run; a process without recurring steps shows as describes the process only. Processes are not among Projects by % done. Overdue process steps stay in Overdue across projects.
• My day shows 🔁 with the rhythm on a recurring step. Process steps without a rhythm do not count as Not moving — the panel says so below the list, naming them.

For integrations (API, MCP, assistant)

• POST /api/kb/v1/maps and MCP create_map take kind: "project" | "process"; any other value returns 400. GET /v1/maps and GET /v1/maps/{id} return kind, and a process's detail also health (steps, rhythm, on time / overdue, last run).
• get_portfolio / GET /v1/portfolio: projects[].kind, for a process pct: null and health; counts.processes.
• Rhythm in a rule: set_deadline with advance + every (1–4) and for weekly days (1 = Mon … 7 = Sun); the reset_subtree action puts sub-steps back to To do.
• Assistant: "set up a process Monthly accounting" — create_project with kind: "process"; "make Stock check repeat every Friday" — set_step_rhythm (the same rule and first due date as the Recurrence switch in the step's window; several steps at once = several cards); "change it to a project" — set_map_style (owner only). You confirm both with a card.

Limits and common mistakes

• "Why doesn't the process say All done?" — on purpose: a process doesn't finish. You decide when it ended (End the process).
• Steps without a rhythm are not watched. They describe the process; if a step should be watched, give it a rhythm or a deadline.
• Bottleneck — an overdue step holding unfinished sub-steps is reported as a bottleneck in a process too.
• Template with a schedule (formerly Process template) is something else: a template that calculates deadlines from a start date. A process template carries the chip 🔁 process template.

Related

• Goal settings → Recurrence
• Dashboard and changes · Organization
• Templates · Archive