n8n Just Launched Nod: A Free Personal Agent That Asks Before It Acts

Chasing an overdue invoice, getting ready for a client call, cancelling a free trial before it renews. Small jobs, but they eat whole afternoons of browser tabs, passwords and forms.

The team behind n8n has just launched Nod, a personal agent built for exactly this kind of work. It runs on your computer, uses real websites the way you would, and asks for your permission before it does anything in your name. In this pill we look at what it is, what it promises, what it can't do yet, and how it might help people who work alone or in a small studio.

Source: n8n, nod.n8n.io

Everything here comes from the official Nod page. We haven't tested it ourselves yet: the numbers are the ones n8n reports.

Before you start: 4 words to know

• Personal agent: an AI assistant that doesn't just answer in a chat, it gets things done. It opens websites, reads email, fills in forms, prepares documents.
• Open source: the code is public. Anyone can read it, change it and use it. Nod uses the Apache 2.0 license, one of the most permissive.
• Model: the AI "brain" the agent uses to think, for example the one behind ChatGPT. Nod doesn't come with its own: you plug one in.
• Errand: the word n8n uses for each single job you hand to Nod.

What Nod is, in plain words

Nod is an app you install. On the official page n8n calls it an open source personal agent "with its own computer": it works on your machine, on the sites you use every day, with your logins.

What to know right away:

• It's free to download. You only pay for the AI service you connect, and Nod shows estimated model costs in its Usage section.
• It's open source, under the Apache 2.0 license.
• It runs on a Mac with macOS 14 or later. Windows 11 and Linux x64 are in preview. You can also run it on your own server, for one person.
• You don't need n8n. Nod is its own app, made by the n8n team. It is not the AI Assistant inside n8n.
• It works in Europe, because it runs on your computer. Your AI provider's terms still apply.

It asks before it acts, and that matters

An agent that can write on your behalf is handy, and also a little unsettling. Nod starts from a clear rule: it gets on with the work, but asks before it speaks for you.

You decide what it may send. Nod checks every action against your request and your rules, and asks when they don't cover it. For example, it spots a client question that never got an answer, drafts a reply and then asks: "Reply in Slack?". It only sends once you say yes.

Source: n8n, nod.n8n.io

n8n is upfront about the limits too. To the question "Can it make mistakes?" the page answers yes: the safety check is a model's judgement, and Nod is an experiment. That's exactly why it asks before actions your request doesn't cover.

The numbers n8n reports

The page reports 678 test runs under a bold headline: zero actions without permission. Here are the three results, as n8n states them:

1. Does it finish the job? According to n8n, Nod completes 98% of 226 errands, run in test accounts and websites, each one three times.
2. Does it remember what you told it? According to n8n, it gets 93.2% of 500 questions about earlier chats right, asked in new sessions. The benchmark is LongMemEval-S.
3. Can an email plant a false memory? According to n8n, 0 of 216 attempts worked: 108 published attack emails, tried two ways. The benchmark is WhisperBench.

The tests date from October 2026 and used the GPT-6.1 Sol model. n8n adds that the errand types come from more than 900,000 anonymised production workflows, and that your results depend on your model and the sites you use. Worth keeping in mind: with a different model, the numbers may change.

What it could do if you juggle clients, invoices and calls

According to the page, Nod is built for people who run their own work: client calls, follow-ups, invoices, supplier portals. Below are a few possible uses for a freelancer or a small studio. These are the examples n8n shows, not things we have tried.

Clients

• Questions that slipped through. Nod can find the question you never answered, like a client asking about pricing last week, and draft the reply from your own pricing sheet. Nothing goes out until you say yes.
• Requests into tasks. It can turn client requests from email and Slack into tasks in Linear, skipping duplicates.
• An eye on a client's prices. Ask it to watch a client's pricing page: it checks every few hours and only speaks up when something changes.

Invoices and admin

• Payment reminders. It sends friendly reminders until the invoice is paid, and asks before a second nudge.
• Month-end paperwork. It downloads bank and tax statements and files them by name.
• Your weekly numbers. Every Monday it goes behind the login, pulls the figures into your sheet and tells you what changed.

Calls

• A one-page brief for every call. Every morning it reads your threads, your calendar and the client's latest news, and writes a one-page brief: where things stand, what came up in recent emails, what to ask on the call.

A practical tip: if you try it, start with one job, the one that bugs you most, and read the first drafts carefully before giving it more freedom.

Memory: say it once

n8n explains Nod's memory with a simple example: say once that Anna, not Bob, handles invoices, and it remembers. According to the page:

• Every note is visible. You can see, edit or forget each one, along with the message it came from.
• Drafts that sound like you. It learns your style from sent emails, without keeping names or numbers.
• New facts replace old ones. Tell it something changed, and it uses the new fact from then on.
• It learns how a task is done. It reuses the steps and fixes them when a site changes.

Getting started

According to n8n, setup takes about ten minutes:

1. Install the app on your computer.
2. Add an AI provider: OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, or your ChatGPT Plus or Pro plan. More than 30 providers are supported in total.
3. Connect your apps, such as Gmail, Slack, Notion, Drive and Calendar, with one sign-in, and save the logins Nod may use on websites.
4. Ask for something, in the app or on Telegram.

If you'd rather use a local model, you can run one through Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM or llama.cpp. n8n notes that the model needs tool calling and a 64,000-token context, and that small models are less reliable at the safety check.

Where your data goes

It's the right question to ask before you hand an agent the keys to your inbox. According to the official page:

• Your database, files, memory and saved logins stay on the computer or server that runs Nod.
• Model services, apps and websites receive the data they need for your tasks.
• App connections go through n8n and Composio by default.
• n8n receives usage data to improve Nod. You can turn it off anytime in Settings.

One practical point: Nod only works while the computer running it stays on and awake. Close the laptop and scheduled jobs stop. To keep them running, n8n suggests your own server or a Mac mini that stays on.

What's next

The page lists what's coming:

1. Managed hosting: an always-on Nod without running your own server.
2. Phone calls to businesses, for the errands that still need a voice.
3. One Nod for your team: today each Nod has one owner, next a few people will be able to share one.
4. Make it your own: change how Nod works in the open code and send it back to the project.

Source: n8n, nod.n8n.io

The short version

Nod tries to do one specific thing: take the tedious jobs that live between email, websites and forms, and do them for you, without ever speaking in your name without asking. It's free, it's open source, it runs on your computer and it doesn't need n8n.

The numbers look promising, but they are n8n's, measured with one specific model, and n8n itself calls Nod an experiment. The calmest way to judge it is to hand it one small job and see how it does.

Want to figure out which repetitive tasks in your studio could move to an AI agent? Get in touch and let's talk.

In short: Nod is a free, open source personal agent from the n8n team: it works on your computer, on real websites, and asks before it does anything in your name. For anyone juggling clients, invoices and calls, it could take a lot of busywork off the table, as long as you stay the one who says yes.