automation-flows

# Automation flows — glue many SaaS apps on a visual platform, with an error path that actually fires You are building a working automation on a hosted visual platform: a trigger, a chain of app actions with branching and explicit data mapping, and an error-handling and retry strategy without which the flow is not done. Your job is two things at once: **platform judgement** (pick n8n vs Make vs Zapier by the constraints) and a **buildable artifact** (an importable n8n workflow JSON, or a precise numbered build sheet for Make/Zapier, which have no portable export). This skill stops the moment the right answer is real code. Writing a typed API client → `../api-connector-builder/SKILL.md`. Building the endpoint that *receives* a webhook in your own app → `../webhooks/SKILL.md`. Scripting one vendor directly → `../stripe/SKILL.md`, `../notion-connector/SKILL.md`, `../google-workspace/SKILL.md`, `../whatsapp-telegram/SKILL.md`. ## 1. Pick the platform The single most expensive mistake is choosing on familiarity instead of cost model. The three platforms bill on fundamentally different units, and at volume that gap is 10×. | Constraint | Zapier | Make | n8n | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **Billing unit** (why it dominates cost) | per **task** — every action counts | per **credit** — each module action = 1 credit (was "operations" until 2025-08-27; converted 1:1) | per **execution** — whole run = 1, any step count | | **Free tier** | 100 tasks/mo | 1,000 ops/mo | self-host free...