PROPOSED UPDATE: Unify material's guidance on setting credentials for HTTP node and HTTP agent tool

[kristinker]

Hi n8n academy team,

I recently saw two posts that raised issues from the QS101: Quickstart’s Section 3:

• Assessment ID not working for Customer service agent module
• Assesment id error

After solving it, I noticed it comes from losing context when students move between Section 2 and Section 3 of the course, and from missing information in Section 3’s instruction.

The root cause is that those HTTP nodes require two HTTP headers (x-assessment-id and X-API-KEY). In Section 2, the course guides users to add the x-assessment-id via “Send Headers” and add the X-API-KEY via credentials.

However, in Section 3, the instructions say to either reuse the credentials from Section 2 or add the x-assessment-id in the credentials (which is opposite to Section 2’s instruction), and they do not mention the X-API-KEY at all.

One student misread and overrode their current credential from X-API-KEY to x-assessment-id, which also caused their working Section 2 to fail, and they have no clue how to fix.

@Ageng_Prayogi

1. Section 2 was working perfectly.

2. When I moved to Section 3 (AI Agent), I tried using the header credentials from Section 2, but it immediately threw the Forbidden error.

3. I then tried creating new credentials specifically for Section 3 following the guide, but it still failed with the exact same error.

4. Out of frustration and trying to debug it, I ended up deleting all credentials from my instance, which unfortunately broke Section 2 as well.

Regarding reusing credentials, students can’t simply copy and paste the node because Section 3 uses the HTTP Request as an agent tool rather than a normal node. As a result, they have to add a new HTTP tool, set up the credentials again, and will likely miss the “Send Headers” field.

I propose a few ways we could reduce this issue:

(1) Unify the material of the two sections to guide which key-value goes inside the credentials and which goes inside the Send Headers.

(2) In Section 3, we could explicitly instruct them again on how to set up credentials, just as we did in Section 2. This would be a one-off copy-paste, requiring changes only in Section 3. I also noticed this pattern in the Foundation course, so that we could follow that approach.

(3) Unlikely, but we could instruct students to use Multiple Header Auth. This is my preference as students can clearly see and manage two headers as one, instead of requiring their cognitive load to figure out that Credential Header Auth and Send Headers will be combined, which is only right if the auth method uses Header. And it also avoids the need for students to copy and paste HTTP nodes to reuse, which was originally intended to prevent students from missing the Send Header fields, and this could break as I mentioned in the case where a student can’t copy an HTTP node to the HTTP agent tool. But this solution will need to change and audit a lot of the materials, so I don’t think it’s worth it.

[jamiemadden_n8n]

Thanks for the suggestions.

1. I’ve added more information in section 3.
2. This has been updated
3. I did not want to introduce custom headers in the beginner courses. The idea is for renforced learning through reptition. The same as where I ask to name and tag your workflow every single time, and name your nodes every single time. The issue with setting up one credential means they may forget about it. When you’re first starting out, doing things over and over you’ll remember to do this.

Cheers,

[kristinker]

Thanks, Jamie, for having a look at that. Agree with you on the 3rd point.

One thing I want to add is that after adding more information to section 3, the 6th old step (screenshot below) is redundant and conflicts, so I think we could consider removing it.

[jamiemadden_n8n]

Hi @kristinker

This has been fixed.

cheers,