watch

n8n-decanter watch [workflow] [--force]

Watches one workflow’s code/ files and pushes each save to the workflow’s draft over n8n’s MCP server (needs exactly one workflow — pass a ref, or list a single workflow in the config). Runs until Ctrl-C. Nothing goes live during a watch session: run publish when the code should ship.

Session start: safety commit + pull

Every watch session starts with a safety commit and a pull, so the session has a clean baseline and nothing uncommitted can be lost to an incoming change.

workflow.json is a read-only snapshot

Saving workflow.json pushes nothing — structure lives in n8n. Watch warns once per session if you edit it, and the next pull overwrites the file.

The editor updates live

Keep the n8n editor tab open on the watched workflow — n8n 2.x reflects each push in the open canvas natively (no proxy, no manual refresh), and skips the update if the tab has unsaved edits so nothing in-browser is clobbered.

Node saves run the same folder-wide compliance guard as a manual push — including the dangling-reference check, which needs the whole folder to know which node names exist. A save is refused when the violation is in the file you just saved; violations elsewhere in the folder are printed on every save but let it through, so a multi-file repair after a rename doesn’t deadlock the loop. push and preflight gate on all of them. --force carries through to the per-node drift guard, exactly as on push.