Installing custom nodes in Docker configuration

Questions
1

Hi team, just getting started with node development. Following the documentation here, I’m using n8n-node-dev build to compile/package the node. Because I’m using Docker, I changed the output path (with --destination) to [n8n mount location]\custom. But after restarting n8n, and refreshing the web browser page, the starter node doesn’t appear.

Is this the correct location for custom nodes, when running in the Docker configuration? Is it expected that the sample auto-generated node work out of the box?

Thanks in advance!

2

Hello @WithinRafael welcome to the community and great to see that you already started with node-development!

n8n reads the custom nodes from the directory custom in the .n8n folder which is underneath the user-folder. Meaning if you start n8n like this:

docker run -it --rm \
  --name n8n \
  -p 5678:5678 \
  -v ~/.n8n:/root/.n8n \
  n8nio/n8n \
  n8n start --tunnel

you would have to choose as output folder ~/.n8n/custom on your local machine. Just to make sure I would check before starting n8n if this folder really exists and if it contains the compiled files. Once in there check also if they are .js and not .ts files.

If that is the case it should work fine. I just tested (to be 100% sure) and it worked fine for me. If not we have to look at what else could be going wrong. So simply write then here again.

I hope that helps!

4

Thanks, you’re right – it’s there. I missed the node in the list due to a sorting assumption on my part. Embarrassing.

5

Very happy to hear that it works! Have fun!

6

I am having the same problem but maybe I am not writting the output folder ~/.n8n/custom in the right place, because when I run n8n with docker like this:
docker run -it --rm
–name n8n
-p 5678:5678
-v ~/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n/custom
n8nio/n8n
n8n start --tunnel
My custom nodes Doesn’t appear
And I also make sure that this folder exists and it contains the compiled files, also they are .js

Any ideas why I cannot see my custom nodes?

7

Should it not be?
-v ~/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n

8

I tried that way too, but I am afraid it does not find the custom nodes either.

9

It seems that the problem is with the operative system.
I was using windows, that is why docker cannot find custom nodes. I just tried in a virtual machine with ubuntu and I got it at the first attempt.

Thank you for your help

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