Building AI Workflows with n8n and Claude: A Practical Guide
Building AI automation workflows using n8n and Claude API -- practical patterns for business process automation without a full development team.
Why n8n + Claude?
n8n connects hundreds of services. Claude adds AI reasoning. Together, they enable business automation accessible to operations teams and analysts -- not just developers.
Integration Setup
Use n8n HTTP Request node: POST to https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages with headers x-api-key and anthropic-version: 2023-06-01. Pass model, max_tokens, and messages in the body.
Practical Workflows
Email Triage
Gmail trigger to Claude (classifies intent, drafts response) to human approval to Gmail send. Claude receives email plus CRM context, classifies urgency, drafts a professional response.
Document Processing
Google Drive trigger (new file) to text extraction to Claude (extracts structured fields as JSON) to Airtable write. Handles invoices, contracts, and forms without manual data entry.
Social Media Monitoring
RSS trigger to Claude (sentiment and relevance analysis) to Slack routing by priority. Surfaces only mentions requiring attention.
Best Practices
- Add error branches and retry logic for transient LLM failures
- Log token usage per run for cost tracking by workflow type
- Validate Claude JSON output before downstream use
- Design for idempotency -- webhook replays happen
- Add rate limiting nodes to stay within API limits
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