wiki-vault/Sources/Dev/pbs-staging-n8n-full-transfer.md

created	path	project	tags	type
2026-07-10	Sources/Dev	pbs-staging-n8n-full-transfer	pbs n8n automation staging docker	project-plan

Goal

Staging (Linode, n8n.pbs-staging.herbylab.dev, 139.144.16.8) is running an older generation of the PBS n8n workflows than the sandbox (n8n.pbs.herbylab.dev, box pbswp-test / 10.0.21.101). The intent was to push all sandbox work to Linode for real testing; that transfer never happened. This run moves the full current-gen set (21 workflows) onto staging, rebinds every credential to the staging values, brings the reply pipeline + hold/flush live (plumbing-verified, not live-post), and cleanly parks the stale old-gen so its credentials aren't lost.

Done = current-gen reply pipeline + hold/flush ACTIVE and plumbing-verified on staging; all other current-gen workflows imported inactive; stale old-gen renamed -bk and deactivated.

Locked Decisions

• Everything transfers — all 21 sandbox workflows, including the monitoring/observability stack.
• No wipe. Stale old-gen is renamed <name>-bk and deactivated (renaming alone won't stop active triggers/webhook collisions). n8n credential objects are separate and untouched, so no creds are lost.
• Credentials come from /opt/backups/pbs-wp/staging.md. Imports rebind to the staging credential objects; sandbox cred values never land on staging.
• Meta webhook path: set current-gen insta-webhook-new to the same path the Meta subscription already points at (old insta-webhooko) so no FB-console change is needed. If it can't take that path → HALT + document.
• Activation: reply pipeline (Sub-instra-reply-handle-new, instra-reel-cache-new, insta-webhook-new, PostPBSUpdate_new, SendPBSChat_New, gchat) + PBS: Flush Held Comments / PBS: Held Comments TTL Sweep → ACTIVE. Everything else (monitoring stack, duplicate PBS: Google Chat Notify) → INACTIVE.
• Verification bar = plumbing (webhook GET handshake, credential resolution, node wiring, mock-payload run through the reply sub-workflow). No live IG posts — that's Travis's home-machine job.
• Hub DB already reconciled (confirmed this run: staging hub schema diff = 0 missing tables/columns, held_comments present). No DB push needed for the hub. Monitoring-stack tables (metrics/auth/security) are NOT in the hub schema and are deferred with the inactive monitoring workflows.

Open Items

• Monitoring/observability stack has DB + host deps not present on staging → import inactive, build deps in a later run.
• Sandbox has a duplicate PBS: Google Chat Notify (Sub-Workflow) (two IDs) — import the canonical one, park the other.
• Sub-workflow (executeWorkflow) references point at sandbox IDs → must be re-pointed to new staging IDs post-import.
• Confirm wordpress-install staging-deploy pins github_repo_version: staging (carried from prior run).

Phases

1. Export — pull all 21 current-gen workflows from sandbox n8n (read-only, via docker exec n8n n8n export:workflow), stage JSON in /tmp scratch on herbys-dev.
2. Transform — per workflow: strip/rebind credential references to staging credential objects (values from staging.md); re-point executeWorkflow sub-workflow IDs; normalize webhook path for insta-webhook-new → old insta-webhooko path.
3. Park stale — rename staging old-gen (Sub-Instagram-Reply-Handler, Insta-Reel-Cache, insta-webhooko, PostPBSUpdate, SendPBSChat, sub-gchat) to <name>-bk and deactivate. Leave junk (My workflow 1/2/3, etc.) as-is unless it collides.
4. Import — push current-gen JSON into staging n8n; rebind credentials to staging objects; fix sub-workflow ID refs now that new IDs exist.
5. Activate + verify — activate reply pipeline + hold/flush; webhook GET handshake; mock-payload run; credential resolution check. Everything else stays inactive.
6. Report — thread checkpoint with final inventory (active/inactive/parked), any halts, and the live-test handoff for Travis.

Notes

• Sandbox n8n has no public API key stored; access is via SSH to pbswp-test + docker exec n8n n8n ... CLI. Staging n8n has the API key in staging.md (JWT).
• n8n exports do NOT carry credentials — imported workflows land with dangling credential refs that must be rebound to staging's credential objects by hand/script.
• Rollback is trivial: stale old-gen is renamed, not deleted; re-activating it + deactivating the new gen restores the prior state.
• Related threads: pbs-staging-n8n-cutover (1003), pbs-staging-hub-deploy (1004), pbs-hold-and-flush (1002).
• Run governed by lovebug-unattended skill, custom tier. Contract written to the run's Trellis thread.