Content Automation Pipeline
A self-hosted n8n instance that turns RSS sources into scripted, voiced short-form video and auto-publishes it to TikTok and Instagram, on a schedule, with no manual step in between.
- Role
- Workflow design + build
- Runtime
- Self-hosted n8n
- Platform
- TikTok + Instagram
- Tools
- n8n, OpenAI, Whisper, Creatomate
Short-form content is a production pipeline, not a script.
Publishing consistently on TikTok and Instagram means research, scriptwriting, voiceover, visuals, captioning, and posting, done daily. Doing that by hand doesn't scale, and most "automation" tools stop at scripting and still expect a human to render and upload the result.
RSS in, published video out. No manual step.
One pipeline that watches curated content sources on a schedule, drafts a script with an LLM, generates voiceover, sources visuals, renders the final video, and posts it directly to TikTok and Instagram, with only a review checkpoint if something needs a human eye.
A 30+ node workflow, orchestrated end to end.
The video-generation graph below is one schedule-triggered workflow: it merges multiple RSS sources, transcribes and rewrites them into a script with an LLM, calls OpenAI Whisper for voiceover, sources matching visuals, waits on async render jobs, and hands off the finished video to TikTok and Instagram posting nodes, with results logged back to a database at every stage.
A visual workflow engine keeps every branch, retry, and merge point inspectable. When a scheduled run fails at 3am, the execution log shows exactly which node broke and with what payload, instead of a stack trace with no context.
Scraping trend and engagement signals.
A second workflow handles TikTok data collection separately from the publishing pipeline: pulling engagement signals to inform what gets scripted next, decoupled so a scraping failure never blocks the publishing schedule.
A second format, same backbone.
Shorts-format content runs through a parallel workflow that reuses the same script-generation and posting backbone, tuned for a different pacing and visual style rather than being rebuilt from scratch.
Running on a schedule, self-hosted.
The pipeline runs on a self-hosted n8n instance rather than a managed SaaS tier, so there's no per-execution billing ceiling and every credential and API key stays under direct control.