OpenClaw + n8n Workflow Orchestration

Pain Point

Letting your AI agent directly manage API keys and call external services is a recipe for security incidents. Every new integration means another credential in .env.local, another surface for the agent to accidentally leak or misuse.

When OpenClaw handles everything directly, you get three compounding problems:

• No visibility: It's hard to inspect what the agent actually built when it's buried in JavaScript skill files or shell scripts.
• Credential sprawl: Every API key lives in the agent's environment, one bad commit away from exposure.
• Wasted tokens: Deterministic sub-tasks (send an email, update a spreadsheet) burn LLM reasoning tokens when they could run as simple workflows.

What You Can Do

• Proxy pattern: OpenClaw writes n8n workflows with incoming webhooks, then calls those webhooks for all future API interactions.
• Credential isolation: API keys live in n8n's credential store — the agent only knows the webhook URL.
• Visual debugging: Every workflow is inspectable in n8n's drag-and-drop UI.
• Lockable workflows: Once built and tested, lock the workflow so the agent can't modify it.
• Safeguard steps: Add validation, rate limiting, and approval gates in n8n before any external call executes.

Architecture

┌──────────────┐     webhook call      ┌─────────────────┐     API call     ┌──────────────┐
│   OpenClaw   │ ───────────────────→  │   n8n Workflow   │ ─────────────→  │  External    │
│   (agent)    │   (no credentials)    │  (locked, with   │  (credentials   │  Service     │
│              │                       │   API keys)      │   stay here)    │  (Slack, etc)│
└──────────────┘                       └─────────────────┘                  └──────────────┘

Skills You Need

• n8n API access (for creating/triggering workflows)
• fetch or curl for webhook calls
• Docker (if using the pre-configured stack)
• n8n credential management (manual, one-time setup per integration)

How to Set It Up

Option 1: Pre-configured Docker Stack

A community-maintained Docker Compose setup (openclaw-n8n-stack) pre-wires everything:

git clone https://github.com/caprihan/openclaw-n8n-stack.git
cd openclaw-n8n-stack
cp .env.template .env
# Add your Anthropic API key to .env
docker-compose up -d

This gives you:

• OpenClaw on port 3456
• n8n on port 5678
• Shared Docker network so OpenClaw can call http://n8n:5678/webhook/... directly
• Pre-built workflow templates (multi-LLM fact-checking, email triage, social monitoring)

Option 2: Manual Setup

1. Install n8n (npm install n8n -g or run via Docker).
2. Configure OpenClaw to know the n8n base URL.
3. Add this to your AGENTS.md:

## n8n Integration Pattern

When I need to interact with external APIs:

1. NEVER store API keys in my environment or skill files
2. Check if an n8n workflow already exists for this integration
3. If not, create one via n8n API with a webhook trigger
4. Notify the user to add credentials and lock the workflow
5. For all future calls, use the webhook URL with a JSON payload

Workflow naming: openclaw-{service}-{action}
Example: openclaw-slack-send-message

Webhook call format:
curl -X POST http://n8n:5678/webhook/{workflow-name} \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channel": "#general", "message": "Hello from OpenClaw"}'

Build → Test → Lock Cycle

1. Agent designs the workflow → creates it via n8n API with webhook trigger.
2. You add credentials → open n8n UI, add tokens manually.
3. You lock the workflow → prevent further modifications by the agent.
4. Agent calls the webhook → from now on, it never sees the API key.

Key Insights

• Three wins in one: Observability (visual UI), security (credential isolation), and performance (deterministic workflows don't burn tokens).
• Lock after testing: The "build → test → lock" cycle is critical — without locking, the agent can silently modify workflows.
• n8n has 400+ integrations: Most external services already have n8n nodes, saving the agent from writing custom API calls.
• Audit trail for free: n8n logs every workflow execution with input/output data.

Inspired By

This pattern was described by Simon Hoiberg, who outlined three reasons this approach beats letting OpenClaw handle API interactions directly: observability through n8n's visual UI, security through credential isolation, and performance by running deterministic sub-tasks as workflows instead of LLM calls. The openclaw-n8n-stack repository provides a ready-to-run Docker Compose setup implementing this pattern.

Related Links

• n8n Documentation
• openclaw-n8n-stack (Docker setup)
• n8n Webhook Trigger Docs

Deploy with ShipClaw

Skip the setup — get a fully managed OpenClaw instance ready to run this use case.

Quick Start

1. Pick a plan — Pro recommended for this use case
2. Go to your Instances Dashboard and click Deploy New Instance
3. Once deployed, use the sample prompt above to configure your agent
4. Customize thresholds, schedules, and sources to fit your workflow