Deploying/installing custom nodes privately without killing n8n instance

Questions
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1

Describe the problem/error/question

I’m wondering if there is a way to deploy newly created custom nodes privately without having to restart my entire instance. I followed the tutorial on n8n docs and created a custom node. When I copied the node code files into the .n8n/custom directory of my running instance, the new node did not show up. It wasn’t until I reran my instance that the new node became available.

Am I understanding correctly that if I want to add new nodes to my locally hosted instance, I will need to kill the instance along with any running executions and bring it back up again? If this is the case, has there been any talk of the downtime this presents and ways to remedy that? Thank you!

Information on your n8n setup

  • n8n version: Community
  • Database (default: SQLite): Default
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main): Default
  • Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app): Docker
  • Operating system: RHEL8
3

Hi @Orionpax ,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! I appreciate your response. I’m assuming that means, as far as you know, there’s no future plans to change this so it does process new nodes in real time?