Tutorials
n8n tutorials
Short, practical guides for getting templates running in your own n8n. Start with importing, then go deeper as you build.
Guides
- How to import an n8n template Copy the JSON, paste it onto the canvas, connect credentials, test and activate — the whole flow in ~5 minutes. ~5 min →
- Self-hosted n8n: the practical guide Requirements, the one-line Docker setup and Compose steps copied from the official docs, when n8n Cloud is cheaper, and how to import templates into your own instance. ~12 min →
- n8n pricing explained Every plan, what counts as an execution, what one workflow run costs, and how many executions our templates use at each trigger cadence. ~8 min →
Troubleshooting self-hosted n8n
- Secure cookie error The editor is replaced by “configured to use a secure cookie” over plain HTTP or in Safari. Fix →
- Webhook not registered A production webhook answers 404 “The requested webhook … is not registered”. Fix →
- Could not import file The eight messages n8n gives when a workflow file will not import. Fix →
- Encryption key errors “Mismatching encryption keys”, “Credentials could not be decrypted” and the 2.x signing.hmac crash. Fix →
- 413 Request Entity Too Large nginx’s 1 MB limit vs n8n’s 16 MiB, and why a webhook shows 500 instead. Fix →
- X-Forwarded-For trust proxy The ValidationError behind a reverse proxy and the N8N_PROXY_HOPS fix. Fix →
- Webhook URL shows localhost Which variable changes which URL, and the N8N_EDITOR_BASE_URL trap. Fix →
- EACCES permission denied The container user cannot write /home/node/.n8n — config or database. Fix →
- “Connection lost” The editor’s push connection behind a proxy: missing Upgrade headers, origin mismatch, idle timeouts. Fix →
n8n in three words
- Nodes
- Each step — a trigger, an app action, a transform — is a node on the canvas.
- Credentials
- Your account connections, stored separately from the workflow. Templates ship without them.
- Executions
- Every run of a workflow. You can inspect each one to debug what happened.
In the works
- Connecting Google, Slack and OpenAI credentials safely
- Webhooks vs polling triggers — which to use
- Error handling and retries for production workflows