AI agents can now test event-based workflow triggers directly
n8n's instance AI can now run workflows with event-based triggers like Linear, GitHub, or Slack by passing sample input data—no need to rebuild workflows with manual triggers for testing.
The AI agent running on n8n instances couldn't test workflows built around event-based triggers. To verify a workflow involving Linear, GitHub, or Slack, users had to manually rebuild it with a Manual Trigger node—duplicating work and adding friction.
The run-workflow tool already supported passing inputData to workflows, but the agent didn't know it could use this capability for event-based triggers. It assumed it needed real incoming events or manual recreation.
Documentation and system prompts have been updated across the instance AI package to clarify that inputData works for any trigger type. The system injects it as the trigger node's output, bypassing the need for actual events. For webhook workflows, inputData is the request body. For event-based triggers like Linear or GitHub, the agent now knows to pass inputData matching the shape the trigger would normally emit.
This change lives in the @n8n/instance-ai package. The AI agent can now test more workflow types without human intervention.
View Original GitHub Description
Summary
Make the agent know that it can run workflows with event-based triggers by just passing it the inputData to unblock the happy path.
We might still want to revisit how our workflow execution tools work (and to have a separate test_workflow tool or similar, but this should help things for now. Using this I was able to test workflows with Slack and Telegram triggers, doing something like basically testing Telegram bot echoing messages back even though I never messaged it first by having this mock the trigger call.
Related Linear tickets, Github issues, and Community forum posts
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