AI News Digest — Instruction Manual

This is a fully automated AI News Digest system that runs without any manual action needed.

Four Coverage Categories

Why This Is Useful

• Saves 30–60 minutes of manual news reading per day
• Provides a curated, summarized view instead of raw articles
• Delivered automatically — no manual action needed
• Consistent format makes it easy to scan quickly

2.1 n8n (Workflow Automation Platform)

• Runs: Locally on your Windows machine via Node.js
• Access: http://localhost:5678
• Key concept: n8n uses "nodes" (building blocks) connected together to form a "workflow"

2.2 RSS Feeds (News Sources)

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standard format websites use to publish their latest content in a structured, machine-readable way. No API key needed — RSS feeds are publicly available.

2.3 OpenAI API (GPT-4o-mini)

• Model: GPT-4o-mini — fast, cost-effective, and highly capable
• How it's called: Via n8n's built-in OpenAI node with your API key
• API Key: Obtained from https://platform.openai.com/api-keys

2.4 Gmail SMTP (Email Delivery)

• Server: smtp.gmail.com, Port 465 (SSL)
• Authentication: Uses a Gmail App Password (not your regular password)
• Recipients: chekchoon@gmail.com and chekchoon@sp.edu.sg

Data Flow Explained

1. Schedule fires → triggers all 4 RSS nodes simultaneously
2. Each RSS node fetches ~10–20 latest articles from its source
3. Merge nodes combine all articles into one list (~40–80 items)
4. Code node sorts by date, removes duplicates, keeps top 25
5. OpenAI receives the 25 article titles + summaries
6. OpenAI returns a structured 4-section digest
7. Code node wraps the digest in HTML with CSS styling
8. Email node sends the HTML email via Gmail to both recipients

Node 1: Schedule Trigger — Cron Expression

0 8 * * 1-5

Nodes 2–5: RSS Feed Readers — Output Fields

Each RSS node outputs an array of article objects containing:

Node 9: Process & Deduplicate — Code

const items = $input.all();
const sorted = items.sort((a, b) => {
  const dateA = new Date(a.json.isoDate || a.json.pubDate || 0);
  const dateB = new Date(b.json.isoDate || b.json.pubDate || 0);
  return dateB - dateA;
});
const seen = new Set();
const unique = sorted.filter(item => {
  const title = (item.json.title || '').toLowerCase().trim();
  if (seen.has(title)) return false;
  seen.add(title);
  return true;
});
const top = unique.slice(0, 25);
const newsText = top.map((item, i) => {
  const title = item.json.title || 'No title';
  const snippet = (item.json.contentSnippet || item.json.summary || item.json.content || '')
    .replace(/<[^>]+>/g, '').substring(0, 300);
  const date = item.json.isoDate || item.json.pubDate || '';
  return `${i + 1}. ${title} (${date})\n${snippet}`;
}).join('\n\n');
const today = new Date();
const dateStr = today.toLocaleDateString('en-US', {
  weekday: 'long', year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric'
});
const systemPrompt = "You are an expert AI news curator...";
const userPrompt = "AI news digest for " + dateStr + ":\n\n" + newsText;
return [{ json: {
  dateStr,
  messages: [
    { role: "system", content: systemPrompt },
    { role: "user", content: userPrompt }
  ]
} }];

Node 10: OpenAI — Response Path

Node 11: Build HTML Email — Key Settings

Node 12: Send Email — Configuration

5.1 OpenAI API Key

1. Go to https://platform.openai.com/api-keys
2. Click "Create new secret key"
3. Give it a name (e.g., "n8n AI Digest")
4. Copy the key (starts with sk-proj-...) — you only see it once!
5. In n8n: Settings → Credentials → Add → OpenAI
6. Paste the key and click Save

5.2 Gmail App Password

1. Enable 2-Factor Authentication on your Google account (required first)
2. Go to https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
3. Select "Mail" as the app, then click "Generate"
4. Copy the 16-character password (e.g., abcd efgh ijkl mnop)
5. In n8n: Settings → Credentials → Add → SMTP
6. Enter:
   • Host: smtp.gmail.com
   • Port: 465
   • SSL: ON
   • User: your-email@gmail.com
   • Password: the 16-char app password (no spaces)

❌ "404 Not Found" on RSS node

Fix: Visit the news website directly, look for an RSS icon or link in the footer, and update the URL in the RSS node.

Alternative URLs to try:

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/feed/
The Verge:  https://www.theverge.com/rss/index.xml

❌ "Bad request" on OpenAI node

• Is your OpenAI API key valid and not expired?
• Do you have credits in your OpenAI account?
• Is the credential properly linked to the node?
• Check OpenAI status at https://status.openai.com

❌ Email sends but no content shows

Fix:

1. Open the Send Email node
2. Set Email Type = HTML
3. Message field must contain ={{ $json.html }} with expression toggle ON
4. Subject must contain ={{ $json.subject }} with expression toggle ON

❌ Workflow runs on weekends

Fix: Ensure cron is 0 8 * * 1-5 (not 0 8 * * *)

❌ "Module disallowed" in Code node

What's allowed: Pure JavaScript only (Math, JSON, Array, Date, etc.)

What's NOT allowed: require('https'), require('fs'), fetch, this.helpers

Fix: Use n8n's dedicated nodes (HTTP Request, OpenAI) for external calls

❌ Content shows as "[object Object]"

Fix: Use JSON.stringify(object) to convert to readable text, or navigate to the correct nested property (e.g., output[0].content[0].text)

❌ n8n stops after closing terminal

Fix: Run n8n as a background service using PM2:

# Install PM2 process manager
npm install -g pm2

# Start n8n with PM2
pm2 start n8n

# Auto-start on system boot
pm2 startup
pm2 save

❌ Headers not formatting in email

Fix: Update the markdownToHtml function to handle all heading levels:

7.1 Add More News Sources

Wired AI:       https://www.wired.com/feed/tag/ai/latest/rss
Ars Technica:   https://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/index
Google AI Blog: https://blog.google/technology/ai/rss/
Hugging Face:   https://huggingface.co/blog/feed.xml

7.2 Weekday Safety Net (IF Node)

Add an IF node after the Schedule Trigger to double-check it's a weekday:

// In an IF node condition:
{{ [1,2,3,4,5].includes(new Date().getDay()) }}

7.3 Store Digest in Google Sheets

Add a Google Sheets node to keep a historical archive: log each digest with date, number of articles, and key topics. Useful for tracking AI trends over time.

7.4 Add Telegram/Slack Notification

Send a quick notification alongside the email:

• Telegram Bot node — sends a brief 3-line summary to your phone
• Slack node — posts to a team channel

7.5 Topic Filtering

// Keep only articles mentioning key AI terms
const aiKeywords = ['AI', 'machine learning', 'LLM', 'GPT', 'neural', 'OpenAI', 'Anthropic'];
const filtered = items.filter(item =>
  aiKeywords.some(kw =>
    (item.json.title || '').toLowerCase().includes(kw.toLowerCase())
  )
);

7.6 Personalized Summaries

Create different email versions for different audiences:

• Technical version (for developers) — include code snippets, model benchmarks
• Business version (for managers) — focus on business impact and ROI

7.7 Error Handling & Alerts

1. Enable "Continue on Fail" on each node
2. Add an IF node to check for errors
3. Send yourself a simple text email if any node fails

7.8 Unsubscribe Feature

Add a one-click unsubscribe link in the email footer using n8n's webhook feature.

7.9 AI News Scoring

Use OpenAI to rate each news item by importance (1–10) and only include top-rated items.

7.10 Multi-Language Support

Add a translation step to send the digest in multiple languages for international recipients.

n8n Key Concepts

n8n Expression Syntax

Cron Expression Reference

OpenAI Model Comparison

Common n8n Node Types