n8n automations

Build your own automations around your brain: let any app put something in HeyOtto, and react in other apps to what happens in HeyOtto.

What you need

  • Your own n8n: self-hosted or n8n Cloud. HeyOtto does not host n8n for you.
  • A key for n8n: Settings → n8n and other automations → Create key for n8n. You see the key once; keep it in n8n.
  • The HeyOtto node: in n8n under Settings → Community nodes → Install, package n8n-nodes-heyotto.

Connect

  1. Create a HeyOtto API credential in n8n.
  2. Fill in the HeyOtto address (as in Settings) and paste your key.
  3. Press Test: n8n then asks HeyOtto who you are.

A key tied to one brain (e.g. Private) only sees and changes that brain — in n8n too.

Triggers: react to what happens in HeyOtto

Put a HeyOtto trigger in your workflow and pick the events. As soon as you activate the workflow, n8n registers with HeyOtto; deactivate it and it unregisters. You see all active automations in Settings.

  • task.created, task.completed — a task was created or completed
  • person.created — a new person in your brain
  • node.created — a new company or project
  • meeting.created — a new meeting (without transcript)
  • news.approved — you approved a news alert
  • mail.categorized — a mail in your own mailbox got a category: only the category and the sender's domain, never subject or text
  • suggestion.accepted — you accepted a suggestion from HeyOtto

Every notification is signed (X-Otto-Signature, HMAC-SHA256) if you set a secret. If a notification fails 20 times in a row, HeyOtto switches that automation off.

Actions: add something to your brain or look it up

  • Create a task (for a company or project, with deadline), complete a task, get open or late tasks
  • Note on a company or project, ideas, a meeting (HeyOtto pulls out the action items)
  • Create or look up a person, record knowledge about a person
  • Search your brain, get a company or project, today's overview

Deleting and sending mail is not possible via n8n. If you still want to send mail from a workflow, n8n does that itself, with your own mail account and under your own responsibility.

Templates

In Settings you'll find ready-made workflows: task completed to Slack, news to Teams, a form as person with task, every morning your late tasks in Teams, an invoice as task, and a meeting from your note-taker app.

Without the HeyOtto node

Can't install community nodes (e.g. on some n8n Cloud plans)? Then use the HTTP Request node with the HeyOtto API at /api/v1 and your key as Bearer token. The full description is in /api/v1/openapi.json.

Why HeyOtto gets smarter

Every action via n8n counts as behaviour — only which kind of action and from where, never the content. That way HeyOtto sees what you automate, and can later build better suggestions and fixed rules on it.

Next: Zapier, Make & webhooks →