Nod: an open source personal agent with its own computer (research preview from n8n Labs)

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Johan from the n8n product team here! I’d like to share something we’ve been working on: Nod, a research preview from n8n Labs. It’s a bit of a different angle than usual, but I think you may find it interesting: a personal agent with its own computer that works in your apps and on real websites, and asks before it sends, pays or deletes anything you didn’t ask for.

You’ve probably got a few of these lying around: an invoice that’s three weeks overdue, a trial that renews on Friday, the client question you meant to answer on Monday. Ask an AI chat and it’ll tell you what to do, but you’d still have to go and do it. Nod is an open source personal agent from n8n Labs that does them for you. It has a computer and browser of its own, so it works in your apps and on real websites, and it keeps at the jobs that come back every week. It runs on your machine with the AI provider you choose, takes orders only from you, and checks with you before anything you didn’t ask for.

A few things you’ll want to know:

  • It’s a research preview from n8n Labs, a team within n8n that tries ideas outside the core product. Expect rough edges and frequent updates.
  • It doesn’t change the direction of n8n. Work on n8n and the n8n agent continues as planned. n8n runs the shared processes of a team or a business; Nod is for one person and their own jobs.
  • Nod is its own app and you don’t need n8n to use it. If you do have n8n, connect it in Apps and Nod can build, test and run workflows there. A new workflow stays a draft until you say “publish it”.
  • It runs on Mac (macOS 14 or later) and Windows 11 (x64, in preview, needs WSL 2). No Linux desktop app yet, though you can self-host it on a Linux server.
  • Free and open source (Apache 2.0): github.com/n8n-io/nod. You pay your AI provider for what Nod uses: an API key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenRouter and others), a ChatGPT Plus or Pro plan, or a local model.
  • On trust: it asks before it sends, pays or deletes anything you didn’t ask for, and an email or web page can’t give Nod permission. Only you can.

Try it at https://nod.n8n.io. If something breaks or if you have a suggestion, please use the ‘Send feedback’ option in the app. For questions and discussions, just reply here.

What’s the first job you’d hand it?

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