n8n Workflow: Faceless YouTube Shorts with Zvid, ElevenLabs

Turn ideas into narrated faceless YouTube Shorts—automatically

This n8n workflow generates a complete faceless YouTube Shorts package: it creates a narration script with OpenRouter, synthesizes voice with ElevenLabs, pulls matching stock clips and optional music from Zvid, renders an MP4, and (optionally) uploads to YouTube—all on a schedule or on demand.

What this workflow does

• Runs daily at 9am or starts manually.
• Uses Channel Config and topics from recent production runs to guide an OpenRouter script with multiple narration scenes.
• Splits the script into scenes, then searches Zvid’s stock library to find the best-fit video clip for each scene.
• Finds background music in Zvid by tag, filters candidates by downloadability and a configured size limit, and either selects a track or continues without music.
• Generates narration and character-level alignment with ElevenLabs, converts that alignment into word timings, and uploads the narration MP3 to Zvid.
• Builds a Zvid project with scene cuts aligned to narration timings, karaoke-style captions, branding, transitions, and an optional outro—then validates the payload.
• Renders to MP4 by default, waits for completion, downloads the result, and makes it available in Watch video.
• YouTube upload is disabled by default. Enable it only if you’re ready.
• If dryRun is set to true, it saves an editor draft instead of rendering (and returns a render quote).

Use cases

• SaaS operators producing consistent YouTube Shorts from a curated topic list.
• Automation engineers setting up a reusable n8n workflow for voice + stock video + timed captions.
• Teams testing formats via dryRun before enabling YouTube publishing.

Technical details

• n8n nodes / tools: if, set, code, wait, you tube, zvidn8n-nodes-zvid, Zvid integration.
• Setup: install @zvid/n8n-nodes-zvid via Settings → Community before configuring Zvid credentials.
• Core integrations: OpenRouter (script), ElevenLabs (voice + alignment), Zvid (stock clips, music, project assembly, rendering).