AI Agent isn't connecting / using tools in local hosted environment

[Hanson_Cheng]

Hi!

i am just getting into n8n and struggling to figure this out. i’m wondering if someone could help me.

i selfhosted on render.com and my ai agent isn’t using the tools.

i tested the exact set up in a free trial on the cloud version of n8n, and it DOES work.

what am I missing here? thank you!

[n8n]

It looks like your topic is missing some important information. Could you provide the following if applicable.

• n8n version:
• Database (default: SQLite):
• n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
• Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app):
• Operating system:

[Jon]

Hey @Hanson_Cheng,

Welcome to the community

I once had a chat with @oleg about this and from what I understand it all comes down to the LLM model you are using and if it is “smart” enough to know that it needs to use a tool, Where you are hosting n8n shouldn’t really matter for this but maybe if one model isn’t working try a different one or tweak the prompt to be more specific.

[ria]

Hi @Hanson_Cheng

You might also find this post useful:

Some help to understand how AI Agent "Custom code tool" need to be used

@miko Sure, I can try to explain. 1. Help Agents understand and pick their tools. I see a common error that we put too much effort on the “how” of the tool but not enough on “why”. Let’s roleplay for a second and imagine you’re the agent and your equipped tools are like the entirety of the AWS services catalog (100+ services!). You’re asked to host a wordpress site… yikes! Where do you start? Well, I’d think you’d want to start with really clear descriptions of what problems each service (too…

[Hanson_Cheng]

thank you. i figured it out. i didn’t set it up correctly in render. i moved over to railway and now it works well. thank you!