Making n8n extendable

[ajtatum]

I think anyone that has used n8n outside of Cloudron know that it has loads of potential. For me to move my n8n instance into Cloudron would be amazing, but without the ability to add npm packages as I need them would really slow down any prototyping & development.

However, I read some conversations where @roofboard has made some pretty awesome changes like integrating Python.

I kind of wanted to open the floor to see how, or if, it's possible to make n8n more extendable out of the box and, if not, if there could be clearer documentation on how to do things or at least a faster way than rebuilding & deploying when I just want to add a npm package.

Anyway, after speaking with @roofboard he thought it would also be best to create a thread to have a general discussion about this topic and see where it takes us!

I look forward to hearing from everyone and learning all the use cases!

[robi]

@ajtatum as you probably know, any language and its modules can be installed standalone in userspace, and N8N simply needs to be able to use it from the non standard path.

[thetomester13]

@ajtatum I seem to be able to install 'community nodes' from my n8n hosted on Cloudron - this gives a whole lot of flexibility without having to adjust the package. Main thing is, yes, there does need to actually be a community node out there that does what you want it to do. Just a thought.