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Next Steps Preview

Author
Lukas von Kunhardt
Published
February 3, 2026
Tags
Essentials

You made it through the first section. You have n8n running, you've built workflows, you know how to debug them, and you can write basic expressions. That's enough to start automating real things.

What You Covered

The fundamentals

  • What n8n is and why it's worth your time
  • Getting n8n running (cloud or self-hosted)
  • Using AI to build workflows faster

Hands-on skills

  • Building workflows from scratch: triggers, actions, data flow
  • Running, testing, and debugging when things break
  • Error handling strategies that actually work in production
  • Writing expressions to transform data
  • Naming nodes so your workflows stay readable

What's Next

Section 2: Data Fundamentals is where you learn to manipulate data — filtering, sorting, restructuring JSON, referencing data from earlier nodes. These are the skills that separate "I built a workflow once" from "I can build whatever I need." Not the flashiest section, but it unlocks everything after it.

Then things get interesting. You'll tackle story-based projects: decoding Chewbacca's CV (API data extraction), building an AI email triage system (the Support Inbox Commander), and responding to a dinosaur park crisis with AI vision. These aren't contrived exercises. They're complete workflows that teach you how real automations come together.

We're also actively building out the AI and agents section. Connecting LLMs to n8n workflows is probably the most valuable thing you can learn right now, and it's coming soon.

One Piece of Advice

Do the exercises. Build the workflows yourself before looking at solutions. The gap between "I watched someone do it" and "I did it myself" is where learning actually happens.

Ready? Head to Section 2.