Community Source Discovery

Community Source Discovery

Find n8n workflow JSON from GitHub repositories, community forums, and third-party platforms. Use this skill when the official template library (template-discovery) returns no suitable results or when the user specifically requests community/GitHub sources.

All web searches use ~~search and page reads use ~~scrape — see CONNECTORS.md for provider fallback chains.

See references/GITHUB_SOURCES.md for curated repository list and references/COMMUNITY_PLATFORMS.md for third-party platform details.

Tiered Search Strategy

Always follow this order. Do NOT skip to GitHub without checking the official library first.

Tier 1: OFFICIAL LIBRARY (template-discovery skill)
  → ~~template_search with user's query
  → If good match found → stop, use it

Tier 2: GITHUB REPOSITORIES
  → ~~search with targeted GitHub queries
  → ~~scrape to fetch raw workflow JSON from repos

Tier 3: COMMUNITY PLATFORMS
  → ~~search on n8n community forum, blogs, tutorials
  → ~~scrape to extract workflow JSON or download links

When to escalate from Tier 1 to Tier 2

• Official search returns 0 results.
• Results exist but none match the required node combination.
• User needs a workflow for a niche integration not in the template library.
• User explicitly asks for GitHub/community sources.
• Template library versions are outdated for the user's n8n version.

Tier 2: GitHub Search

Targeted search queries

Construct queries that combine the workflow purpose with GitHub-specific filters:

~~search("n8n workflow JSON site:github.com <use-case>")
~~search("n8n-nodes-base.<nodeName> workflow.json site:github.com")
~~search("repo:n8nio/n8n-templates <keyword>")
~~search("filename:workflow.json n8n <integration-name> site:github.com")

High-value repositories

Search these repositories first — they contain curated, tested workflows:

Fetching raw JSON from GitHub

Once a workflow file is located, fetch the raw content:

1. ~~search("site:github.com n8n workflow <query>") → find repo URL
2. Convert GitHub URL to raw URL:
   github.com/user/repo/blob/main/file.json
   → raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/main/file.json
3. ~~scrape(raw_url) → workflow JSON

Always convert to raw.githubusercontent.com before scraping — the regular GitHub page wraps JSON in HTML.

GitHub search operators

Tier 3: Community Platforms

When GitHub search is insufficient, search broader community sources:

Forum:     ~~search("site:community.n8n.io <query>")
Tutorials: ~~search("n8n workflow tutorial <query>")
YouTube:   ~~search("n8n tutorial <query> site:youtube.com")

• Forum posts often contain workflow JSON in code blocks — ~~scrape(post_url) to extract.
• Blog tutorials frequently include downloadable workflow JSON.
• YouTube descriptions sometimes link to workflow JSON files.

Quality Assessment

Not all community workflows are safe or functional. Assess every candidate before recommending.

Heuristics

Red flags

• Workflow JSON contains actual API keys or tokens (security risk).
• Uses deprecated nodes (n8n-nodes-base.function instead of n8n-nodes-base.code).
• References community nodes not available in the user's installation.
• Over 50 nodes with no sub-workflow organization.
• No connections object or empty node list (broken export).

After Discovery

Once a suitable community workflow is found:

1. ~~scrape(raw_json_url) → fetch the workflow JSON
2. Run workflow-analysis skill → assess compatibility and security
3. ~~workflow_validate(json) → validate before import
4. ~~workflow_create(json) → import to n8n instance (not ~~template_deploy)
5. ~~workflow_list → verify import succeeded

Use ~~workflow_create (not ~~template_deploy) for community JSON — template deploy is only for official library templates.