I am trying to upload data from a google drive to a OpenAI Assistant vector store. I found an older thread that said it was not supported but it is more than 8 months old. Is it still not supported? does anyone have a workaround?
If you are working with OpenAI Assistants, the documents you upload must be intended for assistants and in one of the supported formats (such as .txt, .pdf, .md, .csv, etc.).
https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/responses/create
Thank you,
the issue is, that assitants can only work with documents that are in a Vector store, and from everything I tried and from previous conversations on this forum (from 2024), n8n does not have a way to upload documents to a vector store. Do you have a working solution per the documents you shared?
I think you could try this:
1- Read a .txt or .csv file: Use the Read Binary File node to get the content. Make sure to configure it to read in binary mode if you need to send it as multipart/form-data.
2- Upload a file as a vector source to OpenAI.
Use an HTTP Request node with this configuration:
Method: POST
URL: https://api.openai.com/v1/vector_stores/{vector_store_id}/files
Authentication: Bearer Token (your OpenAI API key)
Headers:
{
"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
}
Body Content Type: multipart/form-data
Body Parameters:
file: The file read in binary (binaryData)
purpose: (optional, can be omitted in this API)
n8n should allow you to directly connect the read file to the file field.
Example in CURL (for comparison), this is what you would be replicating in n8n:
curl https://api.openai.com/v1/vector_stores/{vector_store_id}/files \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-F file=@my_data.txt
Thank you so much. I have 2 follow question:
First:
I do not see a node called “Read Binary File” also, where should this step be in the sequence? is it replacing the download file from google drive node, or is it pulling the data from it?
Download the file from Google Drive using the Google Drive Trigger or Get File node, then the Read Binary File node set to “binary data”.
Upload the file to the vector store by inserting an HTTP Request node:
Method: POST
URL: https://api.openai.com/v1/vector_stores/<VECTOR_STORE_ID>/files
Auth: Bearer with your OpenAI API Key
Body type: multipart/form-data
File field: connects to the "Read Binary File" node
Google Drive → Read Binary File →
HTTP Request (upload to the vector store) →
HTTP Request (update assistant, if required) →
Assistant Node (chat)
Thank you. I am still struggling with the “Read Binary File” which I assume is now called "
Read/Write Files from Disk" . Do yo by any chance have a template that has all the steps and/or a loom video that shows how to set it up.
Also, Do I need another HTTP call in the end that will delete the file from the Vector Store after the assistant processes it, so it does not get processed again?