Agent skill · software engineering · sickn33
n8n-binary-and-data
Handle n8n files and binary data across uploads, downloads, transforms, multimodal inputs, agent tools, and chat surfaces.
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific patterns and rules for handling binary data in n8n workflows that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
About 10k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 44,571 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
n8n Binary and Data When to Use Use this skill when an n8n workflow reads, transforms, stores, uploads, downloads, or transmits files and binary fields, including multimodal agent inputs and chat attachments. Treat uploaded files and generated URLs as potentially sensitive. Obtain approval before sending data to a new external host, use the narrowest retention and access scope available, avoid logging bytes or base64 payloads, and do not embed credentials in URLs or workflow fields. Every n8n item carries two independent slots: $json for structured data and $binary for file bytes. They travel side by side through the workflow. File contents — the actual PDF, image, or zip — live in $binary, never in $json. Get that split wrong and you read an empty field, lose a file mid-flow, or hand an AI agent a tool input it can't use. This skill covers where binary lives, how to read and write it, how to keep it from being silently stripped, the hard wall between binary and the AI-agent tool boundary, and why chat surfaces need a URL instead of raw bytes. --- The three rules that prevent 90% of binary bugs 1. File contents are in $binary, not $json. After an HTTP download, a "Read Files", or an email-attachment trigger, the bytes sit in $binary.<key>. $json holds metadata at most. Reading $json.data for file contents gives you nothing. 2. Binary cannot cross the AI-agent tool boundary — in either direction. Tool arguments and tool return values are JSON only. An uploaded image can't be passed into a tool as a file, and a tool can't return raw bytes. Pre-stage to storage and pass a key or URL through JSON instead. See references/AGENTTOOLBINARY.md. 3. Chat surfaces render images by URL, not by $binary. Slack, Discord, Teams, Telegram, embedded webhook chat — none of them read the binary slot. The image has to live somewhere a URL can fetch it. See references/CDNREQUIREMENT.md. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills sickn33/n8n-binary-and-data--fc1378