Governance guide

How to govern N8N

A step-by-step guide to governing N8N with Rencore: detect with 32 policies, review with 7 reports, and remediate with 3 automations.

Definition

Governing N8N means keeping its access, configuration, and lifecycle under continuous control rather than reacting after something breaks. Rencore governs N8N with 32 pre-built policies, 7 reports, and 3 automations, so teams can detect risk, review posture, and remediate with an audit trail. The steps below turn that coverage into a repeatable routine.

Steps

  1. Inventory N8N

    Connect N8N and let Rencore build a continuous inventory of its resources, owners, and configuration, so governance starts from what exists rather than a stale export.

  2. Detect with policies

    Turn on the pre-built policies that cover N8N to surface oversharing, sprawl, and misconfiguration on the first scan, before writing a single custom rule.

  3. Review by owner and severity

    Use the N8N reports to review findings by owner, category, and severity, and to share them with stakeholders who do not have a seat in the platform.

  4. Remediate and automate

    Apply automations to fix findings at scale, route sensitive changes through approvals, and keep every action reversible and logged for the audit trail.

Recommended N8N policies

Grounded in the Rencore catalog. See the full N8N catalog on the N8N connector page.

  • N8N Workflow is active and live

    Active workflows run automatically, raising the likelihood that any weakness is exercised

    Severity: High
  • N8N User is an external (guest) user

    External guest accounts are a common attack vector, raising the likelihood of misused access

    Severity: High
  • N8N User is deactivated in Entra ID

    Detects N8N users who are deactived in the parent Entra ID

    Severity: Medium
  • N8N users is external user in Entra ID

    Detects N8N users which are guest in the Entra ID directory

    Severity: Medium
  • N8N Workflow in waiting state for 10 days

    Detects workflows with an execution that is in waiting state longer than 10 days

    Severity: Medium
  • N8N Workflow running longer than 20 days

    Detects workflows with executions that are running since 20 days

    Severity: Medium
  • N8N Workflow with too many runs

    Detects workflows that have more than 50 executions in the last 10 days

    Severity: Medium
  • N8N Workflows with too many failed executions

    Detects workflows that have more than 10 executions with status error

    Severity: Medium
  • N8N Workflows with too many risks

    Detects workflows with more than 2 risks detected by the audit

    Severity: High
  • N8N Project exceeds the 30 days costs limit

    Detects projects that costs more than 1000 EUR in the last 30 days

    Severity: Medium
  • N8N Workflow exceeds 30 days costs limit

    Detects workflows that costs more than 100 EUR in the last 30 days

    Severity: Medium
  • N8N Workflows without execution in last 30 days

    Detects workflows that could be removed

    Severity: Medium
Explore the full N8N governance catalog | All guides

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