n8n-cli

A CLI for the n8n public REST API (/api/v1). Drive any self-hosted or n8n Cloud instance from the terminal: workflows, executions, credentials, tags, variables, users, projects, source control, and audits.

Made with api2cli.dev.

Install

npx api2cli install <user>/n8n-cli

This clones the repo, builds the CLI, links it to your PATH, and installs the AgentSkill to your coding agents.

Or build from source:

bun --version || curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash
npx api2cli bundle n8n
npx api2cli link n8n

Configure

n8n is instance-specific, so set your host (the /api/v1 suffix is added automatically):

export N8N_BASE_URL="https://my.n8n.host"          # self-hosted
export N8N_BASE_URL="https://acme.app.n8n.cloud"   # n8n Cloud

Create an API key in n8n under Settings → n8n API, then:

n8n-cli auth set "n8n_api_xxx..."
n8n-cli auth test

The key is stored at ~/.config/tokens/n8n-cli.txt and sent as the X-N8N-API-KEY header.

Usage

n8n-cli --help                       # all resources + global flags
n8n-cli workflows list --active --json
n8n-cli workflows get <id> --json
n8n-cli workflows create --file workflow.json
n8n-cli workflows activate <id>
n8n-cli executions list --status error --workflow-id <id> --json
n8n-cli credentials schema githubApi --json
n8n-cli audit generate --categories credentials,database --json

Resources

Resource	Actions
workflows	list, get, create, update, delete, activate, deactivate, archive, unarchive, transfer, get-tags, set-tags
executions	list, get, delete, retry, stop
credentials	list, create, delete, schema, test, transfer
tags	list, get, create, update, delete
variables	list, create, update, delete
users	list, get, create, delete, set-role
projects	list, create, update, delete, members, add-member, set-member-role, remove-member
source-control	pull
audit	generate

Run n8n-cli <resource> --help for the actions and flags of each resource.

Global Flags

All commands support: --json, --format <text|json|csv|yaml>, --verbose, --no-color, --no-header

Exit codes: 0 success · 1 API error · 2 usage error