The n8n Masterclass

Milorad, n8n's MCP creator, joins the podcast to show you exactly how to get more out of the n8n instance-level MCP server, walking through three real builds from scratch, live on screen.

The episode is structured as a progressive masterclass: Level 1 is a deterministic form submission workflow with a data table and email notification, Level 2 is an AI agent that generates LinkedIn posts and can be triggered straight from your phone, and Level 3 is a multi-agent orchestration system where two models (Claude and GPT) independently review the same content and a third orchestrator merges their findings.

Along the way, they dig into the real reasons to pair n8n with an LLM client, including credential management, workflow observability, and the security tradeoffs baked into the MCP design. There's also a practical discussion on why iterating step by step beats trying to one-shot complex automations.

The conversation closes with a look at what's coming next, including chaining n8n MCP with third-party MCP servers, and an honest preview of what's still in development.

🎙 Chapters:
00:00 - What We're Building Today
00:20 - Three Levels of MCP Mastery
01:00 - Level 1: Building a Workflow via Chat
02:19 - Creating Data Tables and Form Triggers
08:20 - Adding Email Notifications to the Workflow
08:55 - Why Use n8n Alongside Claude
16:40 - Level 1 Complete: What You Can Do Now
17:26 - Level 2: Building an AI LinkedIn Post Agent
22:37 - Triggering Workflows From Your Phone
30:00 - Level 2 Wrap-Up and Human-in-the-Loop
30:01 - Security, Permissions, and Community Nodes
44:33 - Level 3: Multi-Agent Orchestration
44:37 - Two Models Reviewing the Same Content
42:00 - Building Iteratively vs. One-Shotting
44:31 - Level 3 in Action
42:01 - Connecting n8n MCP to Other MCP Servers
44:36 - Preview Status and What's Coming Next

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If you want this home security setup, go here: https://go.n8n.io/buddy
You get the free step-by-step guide and Buddy's self-hosted cyber lab.

Your home network is being probed right now, and most people have no idea. Buddy, a cybersecurity professional and solutions engineer at n8n, built two automation workflows that change that.

In this episode, Buddy walks through how to use n8n to automatically scan incoming Gmail for phishing links using VirusTotal, and how to monitor your firewall for blocked threats, enriching each alert with VirusTotal, URLScan, and MISP in under 10 seconds.

These workflows work for homeowners with a smart device setup and for small businesses protecting employee inboxes alike. Buddy covers phishing detection, firewall threat enrichment, lateral movement, ransomware, prompt injection risks, and personal data exposure from breaches like National Public Data.

The conversation ends with a practical cybersecurity checklist: password managers, app-based two-factor authentication, social media verification, and keeping software updated. Links to the workflows, the GitHub repo, a setup guide, and a hardware recommendation are all below.

🎙 Chapters:
00:00 - Intro: What This Episode Covers
01:48 - Phishing Email Workflow Demo
05:50 - What Is VirusTotal?
07:00 - Auto-Tagging Confirmed Phishing in Gmail
09:27 - Real-World Phishing Attack Stories
14:00 - Lateral Movement and Ransomware Explained
16:08 - Firewall Monitoring Workflow and Ubiquiti Setup
20:00 - Geo-Blocking and Incoming Connection Threats
21:44 - URLScan, MISP, and Threat Enrichment
27:53 - Full Workflow Walkthrough: Soup to Nuts
37:07 - Dark Web Data Exposure and Identity Theft
43:41 - Why Use n8n for Cybersecurity Automation
46:23 - AI Agents, Prompt Injection, and Future Threats
48:47 - Personal Security Checklist and Best Practices
52:11 - Closing Thoughts and Next Steps

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Get the open-source incident response workflow here: https://go.n8n.io/incident-response

Anthropic's Mythos AI just found a 27-year-old security bug in OpenBSD that no human ever caught. Days later the US government pulled both Mythos 5 and the public Fable 5 model, worried that same power could be weaponized into cyberattacks. The threat is no longer theoretical, and if your defense isn't automated too, you're already behind.

Dylan sits down with Viraj, a former n8n team member turned forward-deployed engineer, who now helps enterprise companies build AI-powered security systems. They walk through a live demo of an open-source cybersecurity workflow built with n8n and backed by real incident data.

The conversation covers how to bring AI into SecOps without letting it run wild, why historical incident data and playbooks matter more than the model you choose, and how Anthropic's Mythos is changing the threat landscape by chaining multiple vulnerabilities in a single attack. They also dig into real-world social engineering scams, phishing tactics, and why good data hygiene is the unsexy foundation that makes any AI system actually work.

The bigger takeaway: the models will keep getting smarter, but the companies (and individuals) who win are the ones with clean data, solid playbooks, and a workflow harness that can plug in whatever model comes next. This is a practical blueprint for fighting AI-powered threats with your own AI-powered defense.

🎙 Chapters:
00:00 - AI Found a 27-Year-Old Bug
00:37 - What the Demo Covers
02:43 - Test Incidents, Playbooks & Data
06:11 - Live Phishing Workflow Demo
07:08 - Three Branches of Analysis
09:35 - Threat Intelligence Explained
12:31 - Mythos and Zero-Day Threats
15:20 - Why Data Hygiene Matters
16:36 - Workflow Results Walkthrough
21:07 - Social Engineering and Scams
25:07 - Actionable Remediation Steps
30:53 - Data Ingestion for Companies
34:50 - Forward-Deployed Engineering
38:51 - Local Models and Personal Security
40:41 - Where to Find Viraj

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Most people hear about Claude's Cowork features and wonder how it actually fits into a real automation stack. This episode is the answer: a full walkthrough of connecting Claude Cowork to n8n, building a production-ready email classifier from scratch, and the token-saving tricks that make it all sustainable.

Ryan Nolan, who runs a data science YouTube channel and deploys AI automations at his day job, joins the n8n podcast to share his exact playbook for pairing these two tools.

The conversation covers setting up the n8n connector in under 60 seconds, calling external APIs through n8n workflows, building an email classifier with human-in-the-loop approval and error handling, and the new Google sign-in flow that eliminates the painful credential setup process. They also dig into why Claude's computer control is too slow for real scraping, and how n8n workflows are a better fit.

On the enterprise side, Ryan explains why compliance teams need structured execution logs (not just Cowork skill histories), how to roll out AI automation department by department, and the hackathon where a team with zero n8n experience built a driver's license verification workflow in two days.

🎙 Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction and episode overview
02:23 - Connecting n8n to Claude Cowork
04:21 - Calling APIs from Cowork via n8n
10:27 - Building an email classifier workflow
14:51 - Tips for prompting and iterating
13:42 - Compliance and audit logging
24:10 - Saving tokens with n8n workflows
32:31 - Enterprise security and skills vs workflows
36:48 - Reviewing the built workflow
39:41 - Quick Google credential setup
42:10 - Execution history and debugging
44:01 - The hackathon story
46:45 - Advice for getting started
51:43 - Running with David Goggins

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🎁 Link to Enterprise Playbook 👉 https://go.n8n.io/n8n-enterprise-playbook

Most companies trying to roll out AI get stuck at five or ten workflows. Fullscript, a health tech company with over a thousand employees, built more than 1,500 in under a year (with over a hundred in production) and saved tens of thousands of hours doing it.

Sahar Rahmani is the Director of Internal AI at Fullscript. She walks through exactly how they went from engineering-bottlenecked automation requests to company-wide self-service AI adoption using n8n.

The conversation covers their hackathon launch strategy, the template library and global credentials trick that removed barriers for non-technical teams, and the highest-value workflows they built across sales, finance, legal, and customer support. If you're looking for a practical enterprise AI automation playbook, this is it.

Sahar also shares how they shifted their messaging from "AI first" to "people first, AI powered," and why that cultural reframe was the key to getting real buy-in across every department.

🎙 Chapters:
00:00 - Intro and Fullscript's AI results
02:12 - The state of automation before n8n
03:56 - Workshops, templates, and credentials
06:33 - Why the templates actually worked
09:44 - The company-wide AI hackathon
13:31 - Hackathon advice: start small
20:05 - Sales lead scoring automation
24:37 - ROI: tens of thousands of hours saved
27:20 - Finance invoice reconciliation
32:48 - The Director of Internal AI role
33:48 - Overcoming employee resistance to AI
38:00 - Customer support call automation
42:22 - Legal contract review with local AI
44:56 - Keeping momentum after launch
48:42 - Final advice and where to find Sahar

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What if AI could let anyone  (not just engineers) build real software? In this impromptu podcast recorded live outside Google Next, Olof Hedin of Lovable sits down with the n8n team to explore how vibe coding is democratizing software creation and reshaping entire industries.

Olof shares the origin story of Lovable, from a viral GitHub prototype to one of the fastest-growing companies of all time. The conversation dives into how non-technical users (from nurses at HCA Healthcare to a Brazilian entrepreneur who built a $500K safety app) are building production-ready software with simple prompts. 

Olof breaks down the n8n and Lovable MCP partnership, the enterprise adoption playbook including customers like NVIDIA with the emerging tech stack of AI agents, workflow automation, and no-code front ends that's threatening legacy software giants like SAP and Salesforce. 

They also discuss what the future holds for solo founders, the one-person billion-dollar company, and the security risks of giving AI agents too much power.

🎙 Chapters:
00:00 - Highlights & Teaser
00:40 - Live From Google Next
02:54 - The Origin Story of Lovable
04:17 - Internal Tools & Vibe Coding
06:26 - The n8n x Lovable Partnership
09:22 - Breaking Down Data Silos
14:54 - Nurses Vibe Coding at HCA
16:27 - The $500K Safety App From Brazil
23:25 - What Makes Lovable Different
26:24 - Enterprise Adoption Barriers
31:28 - The One-Person Billion-Dollar Company
34:54 - Advice for Aspiring Builders
40:15 - Hopes, Fears & AI Security
42:00 - Closing Thoughts

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🔗 n8n Desk (GitHub): https://go.n8n.io/n8ndesk-github
🔗 n8n Desk (Website): https://go.n8n.io/n8ndesk-website

What if you could use Claude Code to build n8n workflows and never worry about it running destructive code on your machine?

In this episode, Marcel joins the show to demo two things: n8n's brand new official MCP server (currently in beta), which lets AI agents build workflows for the first time, not just run them. And then his own open source project, n8n Desk: a free desktop app that looks and feels like Claude Desktop, but routes all code execution through n8n instead of your local machine.

That means encrypted credentials, a full audit trail, support for any AI model (including local ones), and role-based access for enterprise teams.

We also get into vibe flowing, context engineering, and why n8n is actually easier to debug than AI-generated code.

Timestamps

0:00 - Claude Code destructive actions story
1:40 - Guest intro & today's topics
1:45 - New ways to build n8n workflows
4:05 - Connecting n8n MCP to Claude Code
5:01 - Old MCP vs. new MCP
5:25 - New MCP builds workflows
5:33 - Any agent can create workflows
6:47 - What is "vibe flowing"?
7:41 - Why n8n is easier to debug
11:32 - AI fatigue & reclaiming your time
11:37 - Setting up the n8n MCP connector
12:50 - Building an IT support buddy agent
13:22 - Vibe coding vs. context engineering
15:14 - Agent creates workflow inside n8n
17:31 - Why the first attempt failed
17:35 - MCP ships built-in reference skills
19:22 - Community MCP & combining skill stores
20:43 - Custom skill stores & plugins
23:13 - Skills as .md files explained
24:21 - Latest & greatest, expect improvements
24:29 - Marcel's side project teaser
24:42 - The problem with Claude Desktop
28:24 - Introducing n8n Desk
28:30 - Run any AI model locally
30:34 - Cowork tab: local files via n8n
37:20 - Chat Hub: talk to n8n agents
38:03 - Kelly calendar agent live demo
42:20 - Free & open source release plans

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Most HR teams are still setting up Slack, email, and Jira accounts by hand every time someone new joins. And when requests come in from three different places at once? Someone has to manually sort through all of it.

In this episode, I sit down with Paul Karrmann — an automation consultant based in Germany who built two n8n workflows that fix both of these problems.

🔗 Free HR Template: https://go.n8n.io/hr-template
🔗 Personio Community Node: https://go.n8n.io/personio-npm

──────────────────────────

WHAT WE COVER

Workflow #1 — Automated Employee Onboarding
The moment someone joins the company, this agent automatically provisions every account (Slack, Jira, door access, and more) and sends a welcome message. Zero manual work.

Workflow #2 — HR Request Triage
No matter where a request comes in — Slack, Gmail, WhatsApp, or an online form — this workflow normalizes it, deduplicates it, scores it using the Eisenhower Matrix, logs it to Notion or Jira, and only alerts you when something is genuinely urgent.

We also go deep on the Personio community node Paul built for n8n, which makes it easy to connect Europe's most widely used HR system to your automation stack.

──────────────────────────

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Intro
1:21 - Welcome & overview of AI in HR automation
1:57 - Demo: Personio trigger node walkthrough
2:49 - The #1 HR pain point: employee onboarding
3:15 - How the onboarding agent works
3:56 - Setting up Slack notifications & welcome messages
8:06 - Client intake: mapping a company's tool stack
9:43 - On-prem deployments: hospitals & Docker environments
12:54 - HR Triage Workflow: handling requests from Slack, Gmail, WhatsApp
13:19 - Universal intake normalizer explained
14:16 - Eisenhower Matrix for request prioritization
15:14 - Full Eisenhower model breakdown
23:03 - Building the Personio community node
24:04 - Why Paul built it (and where to get it)
25:39 - How to connect with Paul
26:23 - Enterprise-grade automation vs. vibe coding

──────────────────────────

#n8n #WorkflowAutomation #HRAutomation #NoCode

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🎁 Download the n8n plugin repo → https://go.n8n.io/n8n-ide-plugin
Stop switching between your IDE and n8n. Build workflows without ever leaving your coding environment.

n8n as Code brings n8n directly into Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code, and Open Claude — so you can prompt, build, and iterate on workflows without leaving your editor.

In this episode, I sit down with Etienne Lescot, the developer behind n8n as Code, for a fully live demo. We watch him build real workflows inside Claude Code, Open Claude, and Cursor — including a two-way sync where edits in n8n automatically update your local TypeScript files, and vice versa. Zero hallucinations, runs on tiny, cheap LLMs.

–––––––––––––––––––––––
⏱ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 – Intro
1:05 – Meet Etienne: the man who built n8n as Code
1:54 – Live demo begins: building workflows with Claude Code
2:14 – First prompt: Stripe + Postgres workflow
3:37 – Switching to Open Cloud: support ticket triage workflow
5:38 – How n8n as Code works: built-in tooling & local skills
7:02 – Access to 7,000 community templates
16:14 – Installation walkthrough: GitHub repo & setup
23:13 – Cursor demo: lead nurturing workflow
27:51 – Two-way sync between IDE and n8n
28:59 – Zero hallucinations: runs on tiny, cheap LLMs
–––––––––––––––––––––––
🔗 LINKS
📦 n8n as Code template: https://go.n8n.io/n8n-ide-plugin
–––––––––––––––––––––––
#n8n #AIAutomation #WorkflowAutomation #CursorAI #ClaudeCode #nocode #lowcode

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Most businesses want to automate but few know where to start.

In this episode, AI engineer and agency owner Dave Ebbelaar walks us through the exact 7-step framework his agency uses to take clients from idea to launch.

Whether you're a freelancer, agency owner, or business looking to integrate AI, this episode breaks down a repeatable process that reduces risk, sets the right expectations, and actually delivers ROI.

🔑 What you'll learn:
→ Why you should use as little AI as possible (even at an AI agency)
→ How to identify high-value, low-risk automation opportunities
→ Why mapping your current process before building anything is critical
→ The difference between deterministic software and AI systems — and why it matters
→ How to build safeguards so AI failures don't reach your customers
→ What success metrics to track after launch

⏱️ Timestamps:
0:38 - Overview: 7 Steps to Implementing AI in Business
3:01 - Step 1: Discovery
8:48 - Step 2: Prioritization & Building the Business Case
14:20 - Step 3: Map the As-Is Process
19:23 - Step 4: Map the To-Be Process
23:57 - Step 5: Prototyping & Proof of Concept
28:42 - Step 6: Adding Safeguards & Controls
32:37 - Step 7: Launching & Success Metrics
37:10 - Managing Client Expectations with AI

One tool Dave recommends for mapping workflows: Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). If you've never used it, it's worth checking out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Process_Model_and_Notation

#n8n #AIAutomation #WorkflowAutomation #AI #NoCode

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