n8n Workflow: Discover Business Ideas from Hacker News with GPT-4 Analysis and Google Sheets

This n8n workflow automates the process of extracting potential business ideas from Hacker News posts, analyzing them with an AI agent (GPT-4 via OpenRouter), and then storing the results in a Google Sheet. It's designed to help you quickly identify and track promising concepts from tech discussions.

What it does:

1. Triggers Manually: The workflow is initiated manually when you click "Execute workflow".
2. Fetches Hacker News Posts: It retrieves the latest posts from Hacker News.
3. Filters Posts: It applies a condition to filter posts based on a specific criterion (e.g., a keyword in the title or a minimum score). Note: The specific filtering condition is not visible in the provided JSON but is implied by the 'If' node.
4. Loops Through Filtered Posts: For each relevant Hacker News post, the workflow processes it individually.
5. Prepares Data for AI Analysis: It structures the Hacker News post data into a format suitable for the AI agent.
6. Analyzes with AI Agent (GPT-4): An AI Agent, powered by an OpenRouter Chat Model (likely GPT-4 or similar), analyzes the Hacker News post to identify potential business ideas, problems it solves, or other relevant insights.
7. Parses AI Output: A Structured Output Parser extracts the structured business idea information from the AI agent's response.
8. Merges Data: The original Hacker News post data is merged with the AI-generated insights.
9. Stores in Google Sheets: The combined data (Hacker News post details and AI analysis) is appended as a new row in a specified Google Sheet.

Prerequisites/Requirements:

• n8n Instance: A running instance of n8n.
• Hacker News Node: The built-in Hacker News node (no special credentials needed).
• OpenRouter Account & API Key: For the OpenRouter Chat Model node to access AI models like GPT-4.
• Google Account: With access to Google Sheets.
• Google Sheets Credential: Configured in n8n to allow the workflow to write to your Google Sheets.

Setup/Usage:

1. Import the Workflow: Import the provided JSON into your n8n instance.
2. Configure Credentials:
   • Google Sheets: Set up a Google Sheets credential (OAuth2 recommended) and select it in the "Google Sheets" node.
   • OpenRouter: Set up an OpenRouter credential with your API key and select it in the "OpenRouter Chat Model" node.
3. Customize the "If" Node:
   • Review and adjust the conditions in the "If" node to filter Hacker News posts according to your specific interests (e.g., minimum score, keywords in title/URL).
4. Configure the "Edit Fields" Node:
   • Ensure the "Edit Fields" node correctly maps and transforms the Hacker News data into the format expected by the AI Agent.
5. Configure the "AI Agent" Node:
   • Review the prompt and instructions given to the AI Agent to ensure it generates the desired business insights.
6. Configure the "Structured Output Parser" Node:
   • Ensure the parser is set up to correctly extract the structured data from the AI Agent's output.
7. Configure the "Google Sheets" Node:
   • Specify the Spreadsheet ID and Sheet Name where you want to store the business ideas.
   • Ensure the "Operation" is set to "Append Row" and the "Insert Key-Value" mapping matches the output from the "Merge" node and the columns in your Google Sheet.
8. Activate and Execute:
   • Activate the workflow.
   • Click "Execute Workflow" to run it manually and start discovering business ideas!