Full transcript
0:00Today I'm going to walk you through how
0:01to set up your very first N8N
0:04automation. This is a video specifically
0:06for authors who want to harness the
0:08power of automations and AI into their
0:11process. And there's so many different
0:13ways to do this. And because of that, it
0:16can get a little overwhelming. And there
0:18are a lot of advice and videos out
0:20there, but I really want to get things
0:22down to their most simple so you can
0:25start learning how to use this program
0:27because if you can use it effectively,
0:30you can create some things essentially
0:32your own software to create things that
0:34you would never have been able to dream
0:36of before. So let's start by going into
0:38our NAND dashboard. Now I have done a
0:41number of videos on some of the initial
0:43setup processes in getting NAND working
0:46for you. So, if you haven't watched any
0:49of those, I recommend going through
0:50them, especially the one that I have
0:52about creating uh your NAND uh server,
0:56like whether you want that on the cloud
0:59or on a self-hosted machine or on your
1:02own self-hosted server. There's a video
1:05about that. And then there's also a
1:06video about setting up your credentials,
1:08specifically your Google credentials,
1:10which you can see here. I have a number
1:13of integrations here in my N8. So, if
1:15you want to know how to set up those
1:17because you'll need them for this video,
1:18I also have a video about that. But if
1:21you assuming you've done all that and
1:23you want to get started building your
1:25first thing, you come up here to where
1:27it says create workflow. All right? And
1:30this is what you will see. You'll see
1:32this interesting little blank slate,
1:36right? And of course, a blank slate is
1:37always very intimidating. So, what we do
1:40when we're starting with N8 is we start
1:42with a trigger. And the trigger can be
1:45any number of things, but the two that I
1:47find myself using the most are just a
1:50manual trigger or a forum. So, let's
1:54start with the manual trigger. Let's see
1:55what that looks like. If you click on
1:57this, it'll bring up a number of things
1:59that you can do here. And uh it it's
2:03asking us for what triggers this
2:05workflow. So, it knows that the trigger
2:06is first. So, if you want to do a manual
2:09trigger, you just click on this one that
2:11says trigger manually. And you have
2:14effectively set up your very first node.
2:16And that is by the way the the word we
2:18use to refer to each of these little uh
2:21building blocks essentially is we call
2:23them nodes. So this is your manual
2:26execution node. So all you have to do to
2:29start this automation is just click this
2:31execute workflow. You can also click it
2:34here and it'll execute the workflow.
2:37Now, obviously there's a lot more to
2:40this process and we have nothing for it
2:43to do after you've executed it, but
2:46essentially that's how it works.
2:48However, let's actually go and look at
2:50forums instead. Uh because for this
2:53particular automation, we're going to be
2:55using a forum. So, we're going to click
2:56on this again. And down here, it says on
2:59form submission. So, NAN has their own
3:02version of forms. So, all you can do is
3:03just click on this and it brings up the
3:07kind of workflow area where you describe
3:11what your form should look like. All
3:14right. So, first we give our form a
3:16title and we're going to call this book
3:19description generator. Okay. Uh you can
3:22give it a description if you want, but I
3:24don't it's not required. And then here
3:26you want to select add form element.
3:30Once you've done that, we're going to
3:32put in two fields here. So you can click
3:34add form element again. And now we have
3:36two fields, but we need to specify what
3:38these fields are. So we're going to say
3:41in this one, give me information about
3:46your book.
3:50And we're going to uh under element
3:52type, you can select a number of things.
3:54This could be like a date, an email, a
3:56file, any number of things, a password.
4:00So, if you wanted to have like a your
4:02own sort of login, you could actually
4:04put like a username and password in
4:05here. In this case, we're going to
4:08select a text area.
4:10All right. And you can add a placeholder
4:12for what's showing there. And you can
4:14also specify whether this is a required
4:16field. So, we'll go ahead and turn that
4:18on because we do want this to be a
4:20required field. And then the next field
4:22name is
4:24give me an example of a good book
4:29description. And now we're going to
4:31select text area for this one as well.
4:34No placeholder required. And this will
4:35also be a required field. And now we've
4:38successfully set up our form. So now if
4:40I select execute workflow, it will
4:43actually pull up this form. And you can
4:45see it says book description generator.
4:46Give me information about your book.
4:48Give me an example of a good book
4:49description. And then you hit submit.
4:52We're not going to do that yet. So we'll
4:54go ahead and pause that because first we
4:56need to set up the next step. Right. So
5:00the next step is going to be actually
5:02creating our first AI agent. And this is
5:06what we're going to be using in order to
5:09use AI on this information that comes in
5:12through the forum. So what you do is
5:14select this one right here. uh that this
5:17little plus icon next to the form and it
5:22brings up this uh list of information
5:25here. You can run through these uh you
5:28can basically uh to get to the one we
5:30want, you go and click on AI and then AI
5:32agent. There's also a whole bunch of
5:35other things that you could do, but this
5:38is the one that I most commonly do is
5:40just select AI agent. And now we have
5:44our AI agent. Uh so there's uh some
5:47things we have to do though before we
5:49get to this part. Now firstly, I like to
5:51name all of mine. So you can right click
5:53on this and just say rename. And I'm
5:56going to call this write book
5:58description.
6:00I do this just to keep everything
6:01organized as I'm going. Additionally,
6:04you'll see there's a whole bunch of
6:06stuff here where it has a chat model, a
6:08memory, and a tool. And these are things
6:10that we could hook up to this AI agent
6:13to give it additional resources. The
6:15memory here uses what I believe is a rag
6:18form of retrieval. So you can give it
6:20documents that it knows and has archived
6:23and it can scan through those and
6:25vectorize them and and figure out what
6:28it needs to include in its prompt. I
6:31don't use this as m that much when it
6:34comes to automations because I like the
6:37prompts to not be rag retrieval. I like
6:39them to be included in the prompt. Um,
6:43but you can include information here in
6:45the memory if you want. Uh, but for most
6:48people, I'd say you don't need to worry
6:49about that at this point because that's
6:51a little bit more advanced. And the same
6:52goes for tools. Uh, most of us do not
6:55need to add any tools to this. Uh, for a
6:58simple automation at least. If you did,
7:00you'd click on it. It would come up with
7:01this list here. You could search through
7:03these and find the tool that you're
7:04looking for. Uh but what we want here is
7:07the chat model that you can see listed
7:10here. So if we click on this, we can now
7:14choose from a bunch of different chat
7:16models uh including official
7:19integrations with Anthropic, Azure, AWS,
7:23DeepS, Google Gemini, Grock, Mistral, uh
7:27etc. The one we're going to be using for
7:29this is the one that I use most
7:31frequently, and that is Open Router,
7:33which is listed here. If you don't see
7:35it here, you can just search for open
7:37router chat model and you can select
7:40this. Now, the reason I use open router
7:42is because it's a third party that
7:44access has access to virtually every
7:46model you you could think of. And so
7:49therefore, if I decide I want to change
7:51a step from say a cloud model to a
7:53Gemini model, it's way easier to do it
7:56through an open router node because then
7:59I don't have to change the node. Right?
8:01If I were using Anthropic's official
8:03claude node and I wanted to change to
8:06Gemini, I would have to actually delete
8:08that node and bring in a new one from
8:10Gemini. With Open Router, I can access
8:12all of the different models. And all I
8:14have to do is just do uh select this
8:17little drop-own menu and select which
8:19model I want to use. So, for this one,
8:21let's go ahead and just put in Gemini. I
8:24just did a search and you could do a -3
8:27to find Gemini 3 and go ahead and select
8:31that. So now we've selected Gemini 3 as
8:34our main model. And once again, if you
8:36are unfamiliar with Open Router and how
8:38to set it up, you will need to set up
8:40credentials here. It's really simple. Uh
8:44all you have to do is fill in your API
8:47key here. And to get that, you need to
8:49just go create an account with Open
8:50Router and find your API key. I've
8:53talked about this many times. We use it
8:55with Raptorite with novelcrafter and a
8:58number of other pro programs. So, all
9:01you have to do is go to open router.ai,
9:04set up your account, find your API key,
9:06and then just stick it here. And then
9:08from there, we select our model, and now
9:12this AI agent is hooked up with some AI
9:16electricity, if you will. Um, but that
9:19said, nothing's going to happen if we
9:22activate this thing because we haven't
9:23given it any instructions. So, what we
9:26do here is now double click on writebook
9:28description.
9:30And you're going to see a couple of
9:31things. It'll say up by default, it'll
9:33say connected chat trigger node, which
9:36we actually don't want in this case. So,
9:38you could actually hook up a node that
9:40allows you to chat and interact in a
9:43chat format with this particular bot,
9:45which can be useful for certain types of
9:47automations. But in this case, we just
9:49want it to execute a fixed prompt every
9:52time it is activated. So, we're going to
9:54change this. Instead of saying connected
9:56chat trigger node, we're going to change
9:58this to define below. All right. And now
10:01we can enter our prompt into this user
10:04message area. There are other things you
10:07can do here as well. And while we're
10:08here, we might as well go over them. If
10:10we go to options here, you can say add
10:12option. And there are a number of things
10:14you can add here. Uh probably the most
10:16important of which is system message. So
10:18if you wanted to have a specific system
10:21prompt, which is kind of a prompt that
10:23it weights a little bit heavier than
10:25others, you could put that in here. But
10:27just know that there are other things
10:28that you can add here like um enable
10:31streaming back batch processing, max
10:34iterations. You know there's a number of
10:35things that you can do here most of
10:37which are not necessary for our purposes
10:40today. Uh so now we want to go to this
10:42prompt user message. Now in order to do
10:45this properly we want to go to where
10:47this says fixed and expression. You want
10:50to select expression cuz that's going to
10:52allow us to do some fun things. Once
10:54you've done that you'll see this little
10:56icon here in the corner of the prompt
11:00window. Click on that. And now we can
11:04actually start putting our prompt in
11:05here. So we could add something like I
11:07want you to analyze the above
11:11book description
11:14um and information about
11:18my book and then write a book
11:22description that is similar to the book
11:26description above
11:29but about my book instead. Okay, a very
11:32simple prompt. We're not going crazy
11:33with our prompt engineering today. Uh,
11:36but you'll notice something. First of
11:38all, where is it getting this
11:39information? Um, I sure we're going to
11:43be submitting a form there, but how do
11:45we make sure that this prompt has access
11:47to our answers on that form? So, to do
11:50that, we're going to do a couple of
11:52things. First of all, I can't actually
11:55see that information until we've
11:56executed the form. So, what we're going
11:58to do is we're going to come out of this
12:00and now go back to our form and we're
12:03also going to go find the book
12:05description and some information about
12:06our book uh that we want to do. So, to
12:09do this, I like to go to Amazon and then
12:11from the little hamburger icon here in
12:13Amazon, we'll go to bestsellers
12:16and then we'll go to Kindle store
12:19Kindle ebooks and then find whatever
12:21genre we want to do. Okay. So, let's do
12:26um let's go let's do romance today.
12:29Okay. Uh so, we'll go down to romance.
12:31Pick our specific slice of romance.
12:35Let's say romantasy.
12:39And now we can look at these high
12:42performing books uh in romanty and say,
12:45okay, let's do one that is similar to
12:47one of these. So, I like to find one
12:50that's usually got a lot of reviews on
12:52it. And of course, romanty is really hot
12:54right now. So, a lot of these have very
12:56strong reviews. Um, so we're going to
12:59look at this Direbound, The Wolves of
13:01Ruin, book one. Okay. And, um, we're
13:06going to copy the meat of this book
13:08description. So, there's sometimes stuff
13:11in here that we don't need, per se. Um,
13:15and like all of these reviews here. Um,
13:21this sort of intro here is not
13:24necessarily part of the main book
13:25description. That's just more like
13:27marketing fluff that people add in
13:28there. The main book description is
13:30right here. And next, we're actually
13:33going to need some information about a
13:35book. Now, I don't have any book any
13:37romanticies that I'm currently writing
13:38or planning to write. So, I'm just going
13:40to ask Perplexity to give me a random
13:42romantic type story. Uh, give me a
13:46random synopsis for
13:50a potential
13:53romanty book,
13:56not an existing one that I could write.
14:02All right. And I'm just doing this just
14:03so I have some material to do to work
14:05with. Obviously, if you already have
14:07your book and some information about it,
14:10you should use that. Um, but I'm just
14:12going to do this now for just for sake
14:13of time. All right. So, we have our book
14:15synopsis. Of course, it's an Allara
14:18uh which is a very overused name in AI
14:21writing, but now we got uh our info
14:24here. Okay. So, now what we're going to
14:26do, we're going to go back to our NAD
14:28automation. We're going to say execute
14:30workflow. And up pops our form, right?
14:33So, we want to input our information
14:35into these two fields. All right. So,
14:37first give us information about the
14:38book. Let's go to that perplexity. copy
14:40what it gave us
14:43and then go back to our form and fill
14:47that in here and then give me an example
14:49of a good book description. Let's go
14:51here, copy what we've got from this book
14:54on Amazon that's clearly doing well. Go
14:56back to our forum and input that here
14:58and then hit submit. And now it's
15:00actually going through and creating and
15:02running through our automation. Now,
15:04here's a fun little tip for you and it's
15:06really useful for forms specifically. If
15:09we don't want to just constantly be
15:12inputting
15:13that information every time we run this,
15:15like say we want to run this a couple of
15:17times, but we don't want the form to pop
15:20up every time and u and then we have to
15:24input that information every time. There
15:26is a fun little trick here where if you
15:27go to the little three dots above the
15:29node and select pin,
15:33it will actually pin this form
15:35submission here so that you uh basically
15:39it keeps the information that you
15:40inputed the first time and now every
15:42time you run it, it'll assume that this
15:45data is the data you want it to have. So
15:48now I don't have to refill in those
15:50fields again. And you can do this with
15:52any particular node. you can just pin
15:54it, which means that whatever it did the
15:57last time it was run, it'll just keep
16:00that every time. And this is really good
16:03for testing new automations so that
16:06you're not having to run the entire
16:07automation every single time that you
16:10are testing it. So that's just a little
16:11tip there. Um, all right. So we went
16:14through and uh did the form down here.
16:16You can actually see some of what
16:18happened. um you can actually get the
16:21output of that that form. You can see it
16:24here. So here's the info that we pasted
16:26in for information about the book and
16:28here's the info that we pasted in for
16:30the book description. Um so that's
16:32useful. Uh if we click on the next node,
16:36we can actually come down here and see
16:40uh what was the prompt that it gave us
16:42and it said I want you to analyze the
16:45book description and information about
16:46my book and then write a book
16:48description that is similar to the book
16:49description above but about my book
16:51instead. However, we did not actually
16:53specify we did not connect it to the
16:55form effectively so that it knows what
16:58to do. Uh [snorts] and which is why the
17:00output it said I would be happy to help
17:01you with this. However, it looks like
17:03you haven't included the text for the
17:05example book description or the details
17:06about your book in your message yet. So,
17:08we need to make sure we are including
17:10that information. So, let's go back into
17:12the book description. Now, I have since
17:14I have pinned the form submission here,
17:16things are going to look a little
17:18different now that we go into this. So,
17:20now if we open up the prompt here, we
17:24can actually see on the side here is
17:26some uh data available.
17:29Um, so here right here is the answer to
17:32the information about the book that we
17:34submitted in that form. And here is the
17:36example of the book description here. So
17:39what we can now do to make this work is
17:42just drag that uh little piece of
17:46information over
17:48and then drag the second one over as
17:50well. And now we have that information
17:53included in our prompt.
17:56And you can actually see this is a
17:57preview of what the prompt now looks
17:59like.
18:01Uh so we have that in info about the
18:03book here. And then here is the book
18:06description. However, there's one more
18:09little issue here that I see. And this
18:11is more of a prompt engineering type
18:13thing. But we don't really specify. You
18:16know, this is one big wall of text. We
18:17don't really specify which section is
18:20the information about our book and which
18:22section is the example book description.
18:24So to do that, we're just going to add a
18:26couple of XML tags on in front of each
18:28of these. And this is just a little bit
18:30of a prompt engineering tip to organize
18:34your prompts better so that the AI can
18:36understand them better. So to do this,
18:38we're going to do open bracket
18:40story_info
18:43and then beneath that, we're going to do
18:45open bracket and then a forward
18:46slashtory
18:48info. And this, you can think of it as
18:50just a convenient little box uh that
18:53I've covered in past videos on prompt
18:55engineering, but it now just kind of
18:57helps the AI really know, okay, this is
19:00the story info and this is the book
19:02description info. Uh, and so you can
19:04I'll put here book description
19:08example and then beneath that a forward
19:12slash which just denotes that this is
19:14the end of that section. book
19:17description example.
19:20And if you want, you could also do one
19:22around your main instructions. Um, so
19:24you could do open bracket instructions,
19:27close bracket, and then at the end of
19:28your instructions, you could do a
19:31forward slash instructions there. And
19:34now this just kind of keeps everything
19:36nice and neat and tidy for the LLM. All
19:38right. So now if we run this node again
19:42which we can do by right-clicking and
19:44saying execute step and then just give
19:46it a minute to activate. All right. So
19:48it is now completed this step. And if we
19:51look at the output here it can uh show
19:53us that hey uh here is the book
19:57description that mirrors that high
19:59performance book description but it's
20:00now about our story instead. Uh so
20:04pretty cool. definitely did the job as I
20:06asked for and wrote what is probably a
20:08decent book description that you could
20:09use for a for this book assuming it's in
20:12the right genre. And so this is all well
20:15and good. And if we wanted to, we can
20:16even pin this so that we don't have to
20:19run this step anymore because there is
20:22one more step we're going to add to this
20:24process. And that is we want to take
20:27this and put it into a Google doc.
20:29actually specifically we want it to
20:31create a Google doc and then input the
20:36information from this into that Google
20:39doc. Make sense? So what we're going to
20:41do here is click on this and under
20:44search nodes we're going to search for
20:46Google
20:48Docs and it'll show up here. You click
20:51on that and there will be a couple of
20:52options here. There's create a document,
20:54get a document and update a document.
20:56We're going to do both create a document
20:58and update a document. But we'll start
21:00with create a document. And first of
21:03all, you need to absolutely make sure
21:05your Google credentials are fully synced
21:07up. And this is not an easy process. I
21:09have a whole video dedicated to it. But
21:11once you've done it once, you won't
21:13really have to do it again. So, make
21:15sure you've got your credentials synced
21:17up here. And what we want to do is keep
21:19this operate under operation. Make sure
21:21it says create. You can also switch it
21:23to get or update if you wanted to, but
21:25we're just going to uh leave it at
21:27create. And you can select your drive
21:30name, assuming you've connected your
21:32credentials here. You can set it up to
21:34go into a specific folder if you want.
21:38Um, and go here. But really, I think you
21:40can only do like the top folders. I
21:43don't think you can go into any like,
21:46you know, sub subfolders
21:48uh using this method. So, what you could
21:50do instead is under folder name, you
21:54could in instead of using the drop-own
21:57menu here, you could switch it to
21:59expression and then put in the Google ID
22:03of whatever folder you want this to end
22:05up in. So, for me, if I just go to my
22:08Google Drive, I'm just going to pick
22:10this uh random folder. Up here at the
22:12top of your screen where the URL is, you
22:15will see this long string of numbers at
22:16the end of the URL. That's your folder
22:19ID. So if you select that and put it
22:22into this place uh where it says folder
22:25name or ID, now it will forever create a
22:29the document that you want it to create
22:32inside of that specific folder.
22:35Uh and then we can give it a title.
22:37Okay, so this could be a title that in
22:40this case we're just going to say book
22:42description, right? Uh but you can also
22:45use expressions with this as well. Like
22:47say let's say in our form we had put a
22:51section in there to select the name of
22:54the book and if we had done that then we
22:57could maybe bring that expression in and
23:00say okay we want it to be the name of
23:01the book colon book description or
23:04something like that. U but I'm just
23:06going to name this book description for
23:08now and that's all we need to do for
23:10this one. Uh however we're not done yet.
23:13We need to also create one more to
23:15update this document that we just
23:17created. So we're going to select this
23:19again. Once again, search for Google
23:21Docs
23:23and then select update a document.
23:27And from here again you want to make
23:28sure the credentials are there. You want
23:30to say the operation is update. And we
23:33want to make sure we have the correct
23:35document. And in this case we want to
23:37modify the document that was just
23:39created in the previous step. So to do
23:41this, make sure this is selected here
23:43where it says expression. Then open this
23:46up. And here on the side, you can see
23:50the previous step. And this is kind of
23:52cool how you can actually see all of the
23:54different steps in this automation.
23:56We've got the form here. We've got the
23:58writing the book description thing here.
24:00And then we've got the create a document
24:03thing here. And from here under create a
24:05document, you'll actually see ID kind uh
24:08mim type. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing
24:11that correctly. And the name, the one
24:13you want here is the ID. So, all you
24:16have to do is select that and it'll
24:18know, okay, we're pulling in the ID of
24:20that specific document. Uh, and now it
24:24will make sure we're targeting target
24:25targeting the correct document. All
24:27right. And from there, we want to
24:30actually insert some text. So, under
24:32actions, it'll say object text. And
24:36yeah, we want to leave it at text.
24:38action insert. Uh you could also do a
24:41find and replace for text, but um we're
24:44going to select insert into the body at
24:46the end of the specific position. And
24:49then you insert what the text will be.
24:52Okay. And in this case, we want the text
24:55to be the book description that was
24:57written by the AI agent in a previous
24:59step. So we're going to select
25:01expression. Then open this up.
25:05And from here we want to insert whatever
25:09the book description text was. And to
25:11find that we have to go on the left here
25:14and find that step in the automation
25:16which was this one. Write the book
25:17description. Right. And since we've
25:21already run that particular node, we
25:24have the option to select the output
25:27here. All you have to do is drag this
25:29into here and it will put this little
25:32short code here to say this is where the
25:36output of that step will go and you can
25:39actually see the preview here that this
25:42is what is going to be placed there. All
25:45right with me so far hopefully.
25:48So now we know that that's going to be
25:51inserted in this step. So all we have to
25:54do is run this again. Now I've pinned
25:56the form submission and the write the
25:59book description. So these because
26:01they're pinned, they will not need to
26:02run again. Um it will just assume that
26:06the output that has been pinned is the
26:08same output that we want to include in
26:11these two steps. So now if I select
26:14execute workflow, it will just run these
26:16last two steps because they're they're
26:18the ones that are not pinned. And so
26:22let's do that. Let's go ahead and select
26:23execute workflow. It'll run this one.
26:26Then it runs this one. And now if we go
26:28to that folder where I told it to go,
26:31sure enough, there is a file here called
26:33book description. If I open this up,
26:36sure enough, the text from that
26:40uh that AI agent that it generated is
26:43now inserted into this page. So there
26:47you have it. That is how to create your
26:50very first little automation. And I
26:52chose to do a book description option
26:54here because it's a relatively simple
26:56thing to do. But essentially everything
26:57I've done here is the bread and butter
27:01of most of the automations that I do.
27:03There are more advanced things that I do
27:05uh including setting up some code nodes
27:08which I use AI to sort of help me vibe
27:10code what those should be. I set up
27:12loops. Uh, and there are some other
27:14things that I do, but most of what I do
27:17is just this having a trigger, often a
27:20form, having AI agents perform specific
27:23tasks uh that are based on prompts, and
27:27then using Google Docs in some way to uh
27:30to place that information once we're
27:32done with it. And this should hopefully
27:33give you a decent idea on how to use
27:36triggers and AI agents and prompting and
27:40Google Docs inside of NADN. And then
27:43from there, it's just a matter of
27:45experimenting with maybe other
27:46automations that people have made and
27:48figuring out how to make those work for
27:50you. So hopefully this has been useful
27:52for you and I'll see you in the next