Is there a suggested workflow when needing to change the captured mesh and skeleton prior to full rigging? I'm literally trying to figure out a way to do something like manipulate my skeleton against the deformed mesh ( ala Rig Pose ) and establish the result as the starting rest pose that I will build my APEX rig around.

Suggestions? Thanks!

The starting rest pose in the APEX rig gets set from the rest skeleton when you use the fktransform rig component. So if you change it upstream, that should be fine. For figuring how well a skeleton deforms, Rig Pose should work? Perhaps, I'm not understanding the blocker that you're running into.

How would I deform a skeleton using a rig pose such that the transformation to the mesh was in that final "pose" prior to the fktransform autorig component and more importantly, once I create a boneDeform autorig component, that the initial pose is what was specified up stream? Everytime I try to do that, something is preventing the mesh from displaying in the viewport when the boneDeform autorig component is selected.

You can set the initial pose on your guide skeleton using a Rig Pose. So if you have three inputs going into your packfolder (Base.shp, Base.skel, Guides.skel), you'd set the rest on the guide, while leaving the Base.skel untouched. Once you create the fkTransform autorig component, the rig will snap to the position you created outside the packfolder.

Oh boy, NVM. I just figured it out. The BoneDeform node has the "delete capture attributes" checkbox checked to TRUE by default. I unchecked that and now everything works.