I’ve come to adopt a few simple tricks that help speed up how I build and work on my workflows. They can help you to save a couple of minutes or hours.
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Trigger node data pinning… This is the favorite and easiest to use…It comes in handy when working with webhooks and/or triggers that work with external data sources. You can then click on the manual execution and replicate the actual workflow
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Copy to editor - This allows me to activate workflows as I build. With this functionality, we can copy the workflow data back on the canvas in a single click
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Debug in editor - It shows on error workflows only. This allows one to copy all the workflow data to the canvas with the exact error as it happened… This makes debugging both development and production workflows easy
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Keyboard shortcuts - These shortcuts save me a couple seconds per workflow as they are easy to use and manage. Eg space to rename a node, P to pin the node data, tab to open nodes panel, CTL + S to save the workflow, etc
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Proper node naming - After every few nodes I go back and rename the nodes using generic names. I find it easier to manage large workflows with this as you can pinpoint exactly what the node does
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Disabling/ Removing some nodes in the test env - Say the node is passing via a loop and we catch the final output. I can either pin the last node with data, remove all unused nodes, test and when done join back the nodes.
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Using the set node as needed - The set node is one of the most versatile nodes in n8n. You can do virtually all data transformations without leaving this node from arrays, math, texts, and much more. I also use it to form reference points for my workflows eg passing all data from a loop that we can then call from the next node(s), passing variables, joining data from different paths, and much more.
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Importing sections from other workflows. Say I got a template that does some binary handling or some complex code, I simply look for other templates with the same feature and copy the desired nodes. Saves me the headache of back and forth with AI
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