n8n Security Audit Workflow: API Audit vs GitHub Advisories

Stay ahead of n8n security issues with an automated daily audit + GitHub advisory matching

This n8n Security Audit Workflow runs every morning to check your instance’s built-in security audit, compare it against n8n GitHub Security Advisories (with branch-aware patch detection), and email you a scored risk report and fix plan via SMTP when new risks appear.

What this workflow does

• Schedules daily at 07:00 (or runs manually for testing) and loads instance-specific settings like N8N_URL and an optional version override.
• Calls your instance’s built-in security endpoint: /api/v1/audit, using the X-N8N-API-KEY header, to retrieve your audit report.
• Fetches the official stable n8n versions list from api.n8n.io to help determine your effective version when the audit doesn’t report missing updates.
• Pulls published security advisories for n8n-io/n8n from the GitHub Security Advisories API.
• Analyzes results to detect your effective version, flag advisories that affect it (including backport-aware patch matching), surface audit findings (including issues related to disabled nodes policy), and compute a risk score, grade, trend, and ordered fix plan.
• Sends a plain-text email report via SMTP when there are new urgent issues, when checks are SKIPPED (never a “fake all-clear”), on the weekly digest day, or whenever testing/always-send is enabled.

Use cases

• SaaS operators who want consistent n8n vulnerability monitoring without manual review.
• Automation engineers needing a clear “what to fix first” plan after security advisories are published.
• Teams managing multiple environments where effective version detection and advisory matching reduce guesswork.

Technical details

• Nodes/logic used: Manual Trigger, HTTP Request, If, Code, Email Send, Sticky Note.
• Integrations: HTTP to your n8n /api/v1/audit endpoint; X-N8N-API-KEY via HTTP Header Auth; GitHub Security Advisories API for n8n-io/n8n; versions list from api.n8n.io; email via SMTP.

Setup

• Create an n8n API key with Instance operations scope and configure HTTP Header Auth to send X-N8N-API-KEY to N8N_URL.
• Set N8N_URL in the Config step.