n8n Daily GitHub Backup: Automated Workflow Version Control

Automatically back up every n8n workflow to GitHub—every day

This n8n Daily GitHub Backup workflow automatically pulls all workflows from your n8n instance and stores them in a designated GitHub repository on a daily schedule. Each workflow is converted to JSON, base64-encoded for GitHub’s file API, and committed as a version-controlled backup—helping you prevent data loss and support disaster recovery.

What this workflow does

• Scheduled trigger: Runs automatically once per day at a configured time.
• List existing backups in GitHub: Connects to your GitHub repository to retrieve already-backed-up workflow files, so it knows what exists.
• Retrieve workflows from n8n: Uses the n8n REST API to fetch all current workflows from your n8n instance.
• Process each workflow: Converts each workflow to JSON and base64 encodes it to match GitHub API file operations.
• Create or update files in GitHub:
  • Generates a standardized filename format (e.g., workflow-name-tag.json).
  • If the file already exists in GitHub, it updates it with the latest workflow JSON.
  • If the file does not exist, it creates a new backup file.

Use cases

• Keep a daily, version-controlled record of all n8n workflow changes in GitHub.
• Enable faster recovery after accidental edits, environment resets, or instance failures.
• Support SaaS operations and automation engineering by maintaining an auditable backup trail.

Technical details

• Integrations/APIs: n8n API and GitHub API (for listing, creating, and updating repository files).
• Workflow logic & nodes: uses if, set, github, aggregate, and a sticky note for clarity.