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2024 • AUTOMATION

N8N BACKBONE

The invisible glue connecting my digital life. Self-hosted workflows for rapid prototyping.

Workflows Webhooks Integrations Self-Hosted
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PART I: THE PROBLEM 02 / 09

SaaS Fragmentation

My data was everywhere, but my attention was limited. I found myself manually checking 10+ apps (RSS, Notion, Gmail, Telegram) just to start my day. Building custom backends for every small idea was overkill.

Manual Glue

Copy-pasting data between apps is a waste of human potential.

Prototype Friction

Spinning up an Express server just to test an API webhook adds unnecessary overhead.

PART II: THE SOLUTION 03 / 09

Visual Backend

Elevator Pitch:
A self-hosted orchestration layer that automates recurring tasks and acts as a "low-code backend" for MVP apps.

Morning Brief
  • Fetch Weather + RSS.
  • Summarize via OpenAI.
  • Send Telegram digest at 6AM.
Social Monitor
  • Watch Twitter keywords.
  • Filter Sentiment.
  • Log to Notion Database.
PART III: TECHNOLOGY 04 / 09

Why n8n?

Fair-code, node-based automation.

  • Self-Hosted: No per-execution costs (unlike Zapier).
  • Privacy: No sensitive data leaves my VPS.
  • Code Nodes: Drop into JavaScript whenever the visual builder isn't enough.
// Custom Function Node in n8n
const items = $input.all();
const sentiment = items[0].json.body.sentiment;

if (sentiment.score < -0.5) {
  return {
    json: {
      alert: true,
      message: "Negative sentiment detected!"
    }
  }
}
return { json: { alert: false } };
PART IV: USE CASE 05 / 09

Rapid Prototyping

Backend-as-a-Service
"Before writing a line of backend code for a new app idea, I build the logic in n8n. I expose a Webhook node, process the logic visually, and return JSON. This cuts MVP time by 50%."

This "Disposable Backend" strategy allows me to validate frontend concepts without committing to a database schema or API architecture.

PART V: RESULTS 06 / 09

Impact

Volume

~5k

Executions per day.

Reliability

99.9%

Self-healing retry logic.

Cost

$5/mo

Flat VPS cost (vs $500+ Zapier bill).

PART VI: VISUALS 07 / 09

Workflow Map

🕸️

(Workflow Screenshot archived)

APPENDIX 08 / 09

Technical Stack

Engine

n8n

Dockerized deployment.

Host

DigitalOcean

Ubuntu Droplet.

Database

Postgres

For persistent execution logs.

STATUS: ACTIVE

The quiet engine room of my digital life.

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© 2024 Ashar Rai Mujeeb

Detailed Project Archive

Full writeup below

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n8n Automations

STATUS: ARCHIVED • PLATFORM: SELF-HOSTED • YEAR: 2023-2024
Workflow Automation Webhooks API Integration Self-Hosting
🔄
PART I: THE IDEA

The Glue of the Internet

Every developer eventually builds a messy collection of scripts to automate their life. I decided to professionalize mine using n8n, a fair-code workflow automation tool.

This "project" represents a collection of complex, self-healing workflows that acted as the backend for my personal life and other prototypes.

PART II: WORKFLOWS

Notable Flows

1. The "Morning Brief"

A workflow that triggered at 6:00 AM daily:

2. Social Media Monitor

A webhook-based listener that watched for brand mentions (or mentions of specific keywords like "AI Agents") on Twitter/X and filtered out noise using sentiment analysis before flagging them in a Notion database for review.

3. Prototype Backend

Before spinning up a dedicated backend for a new idea, I often used n8n as a rapid prototype API. I could expose a webhook, process the JSON payload, call 3rd party APIs, and return a response, effectively creating a serverless backend visually.

PART III: INFRASTRUCTURE

Why n8n?

Unlike Zapier or Make, n8n is self-hostable. This meant no data privacy concerns and no per-execution costs for my high-volume polling workflows. Running it on a simple VPS gave me total control.