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N8N Foundation · Chapter 5 of 10
Chapter 05

Building Your First
Real Automations

Eleven workflows that map to real freelance invoices — email, CRM, PDF, chat, form-to-DB. Copy, adapt, ship.

ProjectsCRMPDFTelegramWhatsApp
A Handbook For Builders
Building Your First
Real Automations
Chapter 05
The Claude Code Handbook

Theory ends here. Every project below is a workflow a small business will pay $200–$2,000 to have built. Follow along, then swap in your client's data.

Project 1

1. Email Automation — Welcome Series

  1. Trigger: Supabase "new row" on signups.
  2. Wait: 5 minutes. Resend: welcome.
  3. Wait: 2 days. Resend: onboarding tips.
  4. Wait: 5 days. Resend: case study.
Project 2

2. Lead Capture from Ads

Meta Lead Ads webhook → Set → IF (country) → Sheets append → Slack DM.

Project 3

3. CRM Automation

Sync a Google Sheet as a lightweight CRM. Every new row: enrich, score, tag, update.

Project 4

4. Invoice Generator

jsclaude-code
const items = $json.cart.map(i => ({ description: i.name, qty: i.qty, unit_price: i.price, line_total: i.qty * i.price }));
const subtotal = items.reduce((s, i) => s + i.line_total, 0);
return [{ json: { items, subtotal, tax: subtotal * 0.13, total: subtotal * 1.13 } }];
Project 5

5. PDF Generator

Feed invoice JSON into an HTML template, POST to PDFShift, save to Supabase Storage.

Project 6

6. Telegram Bot — Order Status

  1. Telegram Trigger → user types /status 1042.
  2. Code parses ID → Postgres fetches order → Telegram replies.
Project 7

7. WhatsApp Notifications

jsonclaude-code
{
  "from": "whatsapp:+14155238886",
  "to": "={{ 'whatsapp:' + $json.phone }}",
  "body": "={{ 'Hi ' + $json.name + ', your order #' + $json.id + ' is out for delivery' }}"
}
Project 8

8. Google Sheets Automation

Nightly: read yesterday's Stripe charges → group by customer → append summary row → email CSV.

Project 9

9. Website Contact Form → Everything

Webhook → Set → Supabase insert → Resend team email → Slack ping → Respond 200.

Project 10

10. Stripe → Slack

Verify signature (Crypto in Code node), then post a rich Slack block: customer, plan, MRR delta.

Project 11

11. Weather Digest

Cron 07:00 → HTTP GET OpenWeather for 5 cities → aggregate → Resend nicely-formatted email.

Section 12

12. Exercises