Notes from the workbench

What's actually changing in automation.

Short, checkable notes on the tools, rules and patterns that decide whether an automation still runs next month. No trend talk, sources at the bottom of every post.

8 November 20266 min readn8nOnboardingEmail

Client onboarding as a chain, not a checklist

Workflow 02.05 sends four onboarding emails without anyone having to remember them. Reading the file shows where it waits for a client's answer: nowhere. Here is where that wait belongs.

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1 November 20262 min readBreaking

Update n8n now: two security fixes matter to self-hosters

n8n has disclosed two high-severity vulnerabilities. Self-hosters should update and check two node types now.

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22 October 20265 min readn8nFollow-upEmail

Follow up without becoming a nuisance: the stop condition is the core

Workflow 02.04 sends a sequence of follow-up emails. Its useful lesson sits before the writing step: who is excluded, who merely waits, and why a reply does not yet stop the file as shipped.

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15 October 20265 min readn8nCRMForms

A website form into the CRM, without duplicate entries

Workflow 02.03 validates a form, enriches the enquiry and writes it to a lead sheet. But a repeated submission reveals a missing decision before the append step.

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14 October 20262 min readBreaking

OpenAI is retiring GPT-4o mini: check your n8n workflows now

OpenAI will remove GPT-4o mini from the API on 14 January 2027. The Automation Vault uses that model, so its workflows need a controlled migration.

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12 October 20262 min readBreaking

Make raises Core, Pro and Teams prices

Make's monthly prices for 10,000 credits have risen. Existing users should check their billing cycle before the next renewal.

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8 October 20262 min readBreaking

Make restores Core, Pro and Teams pricing

Make's public price table changed overnight. The named tiers are back, and the entry volume shown for Core has doubled.

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7 October 20262 min readBreaking

Make replaces Core with one paid plan

Make now lists one paid plan at $9 per month for 5,000 credits. Core, Pro and Teams have disappeared from the public pricing table.

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2 October 20262 min readBreaking

Make raises the Core entry price

Make now lists Core at $12 per month for 10,000 credits on monthly billing, up from $9. Check the amount before renewing or switching plans.

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1 October 20262 min readBreaking

Update n8n now: security fixes released for 1.x and 2.x

n8n published a batch of new security advisories. Self-hosters should move to a patched release now, especially when instances have several users or public triggers.

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26 September 20262 min readBreaking

Zapier cuts the Professional entry price

Zapier now lists Professional at $19 per month on annual billing instead of $19.99. Existing plans should be checked before the next renewal.

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25 September 20265 min readn8nLead scoringAI

Lead scoring: which points count and which only look useful

Workflow 02.02 scores an enquiry from four signals. The arithmetic is clear. The difficult part is knowing when a neat score describes the email rather than the opportunity.

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22 September 20262 min readBreaking

n8n security update: shared instances should upgrade now

A high-severity flaw could let an ordinary member extract credentials from the instance. Patched releases are available.

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22 September 20264 min readEU AI ActCompliance

The AI Act's transparency rules are live — what they mean for your automations

Article 50 became applicable on 2 August 2026. Most of it lands on the model vendors, not on you. But three things do land on you, and two of them are one line of text.

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22 September 20264 min readWho it's forVault

Who the Vault is for — and who should keep their money

Most people who buy an automation product don't have an automation problem. They have a Tuesday problem. Here is the person these workflows were chosen for, the work they take off the pile, and four honest reasons to walk away.

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22 September 20263 min readn8nUpgrade

n8n 2 is where everyone is now — five changes that break old workflows

Version 2 was a hardening release, not a feature release. Which is exactly why it breaks things quietly: your workflow still opens, it just stops doing what it did.

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22 September 20263 min readMCPAI agents

MCP quietly became the standard — and n8n speaks it in both directions

Two years ago it was an Anthropic protocol. Now it sits under the Linux Foundation, OpenAI and Google ship it, and your n8n instance can be both ends of it.

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22 September 20264 min readCraftWorkflows

Draft, don't send — the one rule that makes AI automations safe to run

A wrong draft costs you five seconds. A wrong email costs you a client. Almost every automation people abandon was abandoned because it sent something.

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22 September 20265 min readLandscapeTools

A map of the automation scene in 2026

Four layers, three billing units, and one bottleneck that none of the vendors is selling a fix for. What the landscape actually looks like from a one-person business, with the numbers taken off the vendors' own pricing pages.

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22 September 20265 min readn8nEmailAI

Triage the inbox without burying a real enquiry

An inbox classifier is useful only when its mistakes remain recoverable. Here is how workflow 02.01 labels mail, decides when to interrupt you, and leaves a trail when the model gets it wrong.

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22 September 20265 min readn8nTool choice

Why the Vault runs on n8n and not on Zapier

Two reasons, one of which is money and the more important one isn't. Plus the four cases where Zapier is the better answer and we will say so.

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22 September 20265 min readCraftMistakes

Five ways automation projects die in small businesses

None of them is a technical failure. Four are decisions made in the first hour, and the fifth is a decision nobody makes at all.

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Pre-launch

Hourbench builds the workflows these posts talk about.

The Automation Vault is 20 ready-to-run n8n workflows plus a bonus one. It is built and installable, and in final testing against real accounts before it goes on sale.

See what's coming →