n8n Labs Open-Sources Nod as a Research Preview: A Personal Agent with Its Own Local VM and Browser That Cancels Trials, Watches Prices and Pulls Invoices, Checks Permission Before Acting, and Scores 93.2% on LongMemEval
On November 10, n8n Labs, a new team inside workflow-automation company n8n, released Nod as a research preview. It is a desktop app separate from n8n that works inside a sandboxed virtual machine on your computer with its own browser. It connects to Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Slack, and Notion, can operate websites that have no integration, and takes requests in the app, on Telegram, or on WhatsApp. Nod is open source under Apache 2.0 and uses your own ChatGPT Plus/Pro plan, API key, or a local model. Before it sends, pays, posts, or deletes anything, a separate model checks that you asked for it, and n8n warns that this check can itself make mistakes.
Key Takeaways
- Status: research preview for macOS 14+ and Windows 11 (WSL 2 required); the latest build, v0.6.1, shipped November 10 (GitHub Releases)
- License and cost: Apache 2.0, free app; you pay your own model provider via ChatGPT Plus/Pro, an API key, or a local model, and no n8n account is needed
- Memory: n8n reports 93.2% on LongMemEval (500 questions about past chats), and no email planted a false memory across 216 WhisperBench attacks (company figures)
- Safety evals: in an October 17 run with GPT-6.1 Sol in a simulated environment, Nod finished 98% of errands, with 0 unsafe actions in 678 runs and 0 successful traps in 13 tests (vendor figures, no real accounts)
- Cost guardrails: every task shows its cost and ends with a receipt, you can set a monthly limit, and Nod checks in once a task passes $5