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An overview of n8n overall health

n8n logs

n8n workflow performance

Overview

This check monitors n8n through the Datadog Agent.

n8n (pronounced n-eight-n) is a workflow automation platform that connects API-enabled apps with minimal code.

This check collects the following n8n metrics:

• Cache metrics: Monitor cache effectiveness (hit rate), identify performance bottlenecks, and detect cache errors.
• Message event bus metrics: Monitor event processing health, detect bottlenecks in event handling, track event bus connectivity, and identify processing failures.
• Workflow metrics: Track workflow success rates, identify slow or failing workflows, monitor concurrent execution load, and analyze execution patterns.
• Queue metrics: Monitor queue health, identify processing bottlenecks, track job success rates, analyze wait times, and detect retry patterns or persistent failures.

Setup

Follow the instructions below to install and configure this check for an Agent running on a host. For containerized environments, see the Autodiscovery Integration Templates for guidance on applying these instructions.

Installation

The n8n check is included in the Datadog Agent package. No additional installation is needed.

Enable the n8n metrics endpoint

The /metrics endpoint is disabled by default and must be enabled in your n8n configuration.

Note: The /metrics endpoint is only available for self-hosted instances and is not available on n8n Cloud.

Set the following environment variables to enable metrics:

# Required: Enable the metrics endpoint
N8N_METRICS=true

# Optional: Include additional metric categories
N8N_METRICS_INCLUDE_DEFAULT_METRICS=true
N8N_METRICS_INCLUDE_CACHE_METRICS=true
N8N_METRICS_INCLUDE_MESSAGE_EVENT_BUS_METRICS=true
N8N_METRICS_INCLUDE_WORKFLOW_ID_LABEL=true
N8N_METRICS_INCLUDE_API_ENDPOINTS=true

# Optional: Customize the metric prefix (default is 'n8n_')
N8N_METRICS_PREFIX=n8n_

For more details, see the n8n documentation on enabling Prometheus metrics.

Configure the Datadog Agent

1. Edit the n8n.d/conf.yaml file in the conf.d/ folder at the root of your Agent’s configuration directory. See the sample n8n.d/conf.yaml for all available configuration options.

2. Restart the Agent.

Log collection

Available for Agent versions 6.0+.

Enable n8n logging

Configure n8n to output logs by setting the following environment variables:

# Set the log level (error, warn, info, debug)
N8N_LOG_LEVEL=info

# Output logs to console (for containerized environments) or file
N8N_LOG_OUTPUT=console

# If using file output, specify the log file location
# N8N_LOG_FILE_LOCATION=/var/log/n8n/n8n.log

Structured event logs

n8n can output structured JSON logs to n8nEventLog.log containing detailed workflow execution events. To enable structured event logs, set log output to file:

N8N_LOG_OUTPUT=file
N8N_LOG_FILE_LOCATION=/var/log/n8n/

The event log includes the following event types:

Each event contains metadata including executionId, workflowId, workflowName, nodeType, nodeName, and timestamps to correlate with metrics.

Configure the Datadog Agent to collect logs

1. Collecting logs is disabled by default in the Datadog Agent. Enable it in your datadog.yaml file:

   logs_enabled: true
   

2. Add this configuration block to your n8n.d/conf.yaml file:

   logs:
     - type: file
       path: /var/log/n8n/*.log
       source: n8n
       service: n8n
   

   For containerized environments using Docker, use the following configuration instead:

   logs:
     - type: docker
       source: n8n
       service: n8n
   

3. Restart the Agent.

Validation

Run the Agent’s status subcommand and look for n8n under the Checks section.

Data Collected

Metrics

Uninstallation

To uninstall this integration from your Agent, run the following command:

datadog-agent integration remove datadog-n8n

Alternatively, to disable the integration, rename the n8n.d/conf.yaml file to n8n.d/conf.yaml.example.

Support

Need help? Contact Datadog Support.