How I Built a N8N Workflow That Creates Top 10 Videos While I Sleep

Ever spent hours creating a single YouTube video only to get minimal views? What if I told you there’s a way to automate the entire process—from generating ideas to publishing videos—without ever showing your face? Imagine waking up to find fresh content already uploaded to your channel. Today, I’m pulling back the curtain on a workflow that does exactly that, creating professional top 10 ranking videos completely hands-free.

What We’re Building Today

By the end of this guide, you’ll have a complete automation system that:

• Generates video ideas automatically
• Creates scripts for intros, outros, and rankings
• Produces AI images for every scene
• Adds professional voiceovers
• Renders complete videos
• Publishes directly to YouTube

And the best part? Once it’s set up, this runs on autopilot.

Let me walk you through exactly how to build this, step by step.

N8N Free Access For 14 Days “TRY NOW”

The Big Picture: What Does This Workflow Do?

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty, let’s understand what’s happening behind the scenes.

Think of this as a production assembly line for YouTube videos. Here’s the journey:

1. Google Sheets stores your video ideas
2. AI agents create scripts and image prompts
3. JSON2Video API turns everything into a finished video
4. Automation uploads it to your YouTube channel

The example we’re working with creates “Top 10” style videos—like “Top 10 Cities in Europe” or “Top 10 Classic Movie Characters.” But once you understand the framework, you can adapt it for almost any faceless video format.

Ready? Let’s start building.

Step 1: Set Up Your Google Sheet (Your Video Idea Hub)

This Google Sheet is the brain of your operation. It’s where all your video ideas live and where the automation tracks the status of each video.

Here’s how to set it up:

1. Open the Google Sheets and add contents
2. You’ll see columns for:
   • Subject (your video topic)
   • Creation Status (to-do, created, or error)
   • Posting Status (to-do, unlisted, or published)
   • Video URL (automatically filled after upload)

The magic behind this: The workflow only picks up videos where the creation status is “to-do.” This prevents it from recreating videos you’ve already made.

Let’s add some ideas manually for now:

• Row 1: “Top 10 Cities in Europe” – Status: to-do
• Row 2: “Top 10 Classic Movie Characters” – Status: to-do
• Row 3: “Top 10 Breakfast Meals” – Status: to-do

Later, I’ll show you how to automate idea generation too, but let’s walk before we run.

Step 2: Connect Your Google Sheets

Now we need to tell the workflow which Google Sheet to pull data from.

Here’s the process:

1. Click on the first node labeled “Google Sheets”
2. Click “Create New Credential”
3. You’ll need to authenticate with your Google account
4. Select your “Top 10 Videos” spreadsheet
5. Make sure it’s pointing to “Sheet1”

Important filter setting:

Look for the filter configuration in this node. It should be set to only grab rows where “Creation Status” equals “to-do.”

There’s also an option that says “Return only the first matching row”—make sure this is enabled. This ensures the workflow processes one video at a time, even if you have multiple ideas waiting.

Quick troubleshooting: If you’re having connection issues, you might need to enable the Google Sheets API in your Google Cloud Console. There’s a detailed video guide linked in the resources for this.

Step 3: Set Up the Intro & Outro Agent

This is where the magic starts happening. We’re using AI to write compelling introductions and outros for each video.

What this agent does:

• Takes your video subject from the Google Sheet
• Creates an engaging intro script with a voiceover
• Generates an image prompt for the intro visual
• Creates an outro script
• Generates an image prompt for the outro

Click on the “Intro & Outro Agent” node to see how it works:

The secret sauce: Structured Output Parser

Notice the “Require specific output format” toggle? This is crucial.

Without it, all four pieces of content would come back as one jumbled text blob. With it enabled, we get clean, separate fields:

• intro_text
• intro_image
• outro_text
• outro_image

This makes it super easy to feed each piece into the video renderer later.

Model choice: This workflow uses GPT-4 through OpenRouter (we’ll set that up in a minute). You could use GPT-4 Mini for cheaper costs, but the quality might not be as consistent.

Step 4: Configure the Ranking Agent

Now comes the heavy lifting—creating the actual top 10 list with descriptions and visuals for each item.

Click on the “Create Rankings” node.

This agent is similar to the intro/outro one, but it has a bigger job. For each video, it needs to generate:

• 10 ranked items (counting down from #10 to #1)
• Voiceover text for each item (2-3 sentences)
• Image prompt for each item
• Lower third text (the text that appears on screen, like “Number 8: James Bond”)

This structure makes it incredibly easy to loop through and plug into our video template.

Step 5: Set Up Video Polling (The Wait-and-Check Loop)

Your video isn’t ready immediately. We need to check the status periodically until it’s done.

Here’s the flow:

1. Wait node: Pause for 150 seconds (2.5 minutes)
2. Get Video node: Check the rendering status
3. Switch node: Decide what to do based on status
4. Loop back if still processing
5. Continue forward when done

The Get Video Node

This makes a simple API call to check status:

GET https://api.json2video.com/v1/movies/[project_id]

The project ID comes from the previous “Generate Video” step.

Possible responses:

• status: "preparing" – Still queued
• status: "running" – Currently rendering
• status: "done" – Video is ready
• status: "error" – Something went wrong

The Switch Logic

The Switch node routes the workflow based on the status:

If status = “done”: → Continue to download and upload

If status = “running” OR “preparing”: → Go to another Wait node (10 seconds) → Loop back to “Get Video” → Check again

If status = “error”: → Update Google Sheet with error message → Stop workflow

This polling continues until the video is ready or an error occurs.

Step 6: Download the Rendered Video

Once JSON2Video confirms your video is ready, you’ll receive a download URL.

The Download Video node:

This is a simple HTTP Request node:

• Method: GET
• URL: [video_url from Get Video response]
• Response format: File (binary data)

When this executes, n8n downloads the complete MP4 file into memory.

Why we need this step:

YouTube’s API requires you to upload the actual video file, not just a URL. By downloading it as binary data, we can pass it directly to the YouTube upload node.

Step 7: Update the Google Sheet (Final Status)

After the video uploads successfully, we update the Google Sheet one last time.

This final update does two things:

1. Changes “Posting Status” from “to-do” to “unlisted” (or “public”)
2. Adds the YouTube video URL to the sheet

Configuration:

• Operation: Update Row
• Document: Your Google Sheet
• Sheet: Sheet1
• Column to match on: Subject
• Fields to update:
  • posting_status = “unlisted”
  • video_url = [YouTube URL from upload response]

Now you have a complete record of every video—when it was created, where it’s published, and its direct link.

The Bottom Line: Automation That Actually Works

Look, I’ll be honest with you. There are hundreds of “make money with AI” tutorials out there. Most of them are garbage. They promise millions with zero effort.

This isn’t that.

This workflow works. I’ve shown you the live results. But here’s what nobody tells you: automation isn’t about being lazy—it’s about being strategic. You still need good ideas. You still need to monitor quality. You still need to promote your channel.

What this system does is eliminate the soul-crushing, repetitive parts: scripting, voiceover recording, image creation, video editing, uploading. The boring stuff that takes 4 hours per video.

If you enjoyed this, you’ll definitely want to see my next project — how I built an AI system with N8N that creates viral Shorts while I sleep.

Now? It takes 3 minutes of render time. And you can run 10 videos in parallel if you want.

That’s the power here. You’re not replacing your creativity—you’re amplifying it. You’re not eliminating work—you’re eliminating waste.

So here’s my challenge to you: Download this workflow. Set it up. Create 10 videos. See what happens. Then come back and tell me how it went. I read every comment, and I genuinely want to know if this works for you like it worked for me.

Because if it does? You’ve just unlocked a content creation superpower that 99% of YouTubers don’t know exists.

Now go build something amazing