Chat with PDF docs using AI (quoting sources)

n8n template #2165

Summary

This workflow allows you to ask questions about a PDF document. The answers are provided by an AI model of your choice, and the answer includes a citation pointing to the information it used. You can use n8n’s built-in chat interface to ask the questions, or you could customise this workflow to use another one (e.g. Slack, Teams, etc.) Example The workflow is set up with the Bitcoin whitepaper. So you could ask things like: Question: “Which email provider does the creator of Bitcoin use?“ Answer: “GMX [Bitcoin whitepaper.pdf, lines 1-35]” Requirements A Pinecone account (they have a free tier at the time of writing that is easily enough for this workflow) Access to a large language model (e.

How to set it up

Open template #2165 on n8n.io and click Use for free, or copy the template JSON and paste it onto an empty canvas in n8n.
Create 4 credentials under Credentials → Add credential: Google Drive, Embeddings OpenAI, OpenAI Chat Model, Pinecone Vector Store. Then open each of those nodes and pick the credential.
Check the model in the OpenAI Chat Model node. The template may point at a model your account can't use; swap it for one you have access to.
Click Execute workflow and step through each node's output to confirm the data looks right.
Toggle the workflow to Active so its trigger runs on its own.

Hand off to your agent

Prompt

Help me set up the n8n workflow "Chat with PDF docs using AI (quoting sources)" (https://n8n.io/workflows/2165). It uses: Google Drive, Code, Basic LLM Chain, Embeddings OpenAI, OpenAI Chat Model, Structured Output Parser, Recursive Character Text Splitter, Pinecone Vector Store, Default Data Loader. Import the template JSON into my n8n instance, list every credential I need to create, and walk me through testing it.

Paste into Claude Code and it will do the rest.

Apps and nodes

Google Drive Code Basic LLM Chain Embeddings OpenAI OpenAI Chat Model Structured Output Parser Recursive Character Text Splitter Pinecone Vector Store Default Data Loader

Questions

Yes. David Roberts published it free on n8n.io as a verified creator, and it has 95K views. It runs on n8n Cloud or a self-hosted n8n instance.

Google Drive, Embeddings OpenAI, OpenAI Chat Model, Pinecone Vector Store. The other 5 nodes are built into n8n.

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