Plan & Execute AI Agent – Tools Compatibility & Complex Workflow Setup

Hey everyone, I’m exploring the Plan & Execute AI Agent in n8n for a complex business use case—specifically, orchestrating a multi-layered marketing campaign. My goal is to have Plan & Execute act like a “brain” agent, creating the strategy and then tapping into other specialized AI agents to do the work. Here’s my setup:

  • Sales Agent: Handles sales data, historical analysis, and predictions.
  • Airtable/Activities Agent: Manages a marketing calendar, cross-references data, and organizes campaign schedules.
  • Task Management Agent: Delegates tasks to team members.
  • Email Agent: Sends out automated emails to stakeholders to keep things moving.
    and many more.

Right now, I’m running into errors that say some of these agents/tools are not compatible with the Plan & Execute AI Agent. I’m curious:

  1. Which tools are currently supported by the Plan & Execute Agent, and which ones might cause compatibility issues?
  2. Are there plans to expand or enable more tools for Plan & Execute in the near future?
  3. How would you recommend structuring a workflow that needs both advanced planning and execution across multiple “specialty” agents?
    • Should I have one dedicated Plan & Execute Agent that sends instructions to another “tools” agent?
    • Or should I set up multiple Plan & Execute Agents, each responsible for different parts of the workflow?

I’d love to hear any best practices or architecture recommendations—especially from those who’ve set up large-scale, multi-step workflows with various AI agents.

Thanks in advance! Any insights would be super helpful.

It looks like your topic is missing some important information. Could you provide the following if applicable.

  • n8n version:
  • Database (default: SQLite):
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
  • Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app):
  • Operating system:
  • **n8n version:**latest
  • **Database (default: SQLite):**Postgresql
  • **n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):**own
  • **Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app):**docker
  • **Operating system:**linux

Hi @Kc_Seraph,

Thanks for all the details in the question!
Sorry this one took a minute to get to :slight_smile:

The Plan & Execute Agent is built in a way that works very well with older tools, but not as seemlessly with newer ones. The best bet in most cases is usually to use the Tools Agent instead, as that one is built in with tool calling functions of most providers currently.

I would say to try and apply your scenario with the tools agent and if you still run into the same errors, we can take another look!