CAAL Request Content

[nerd8east-a11y]

This may be a dumb question, but do we have access to what CAAL heard as our request? If I say "CAAL do x", do we have a way to get the text of the request? Thanks

[cmac86]

@nerd8east-a11y, do you mean see the chat history? To see what you said and what CAAL says? Click this button:

[nerd8east-a11y]

If I make a new workflow for example, after I add the webhook as the trigger, how do I tell n8n what is coming from CAAL?

[cmac86]

Ok I understand your question now. I will put together an explanation and get back to you shortly.

[cmac86]

How CAAL passes data to n8n workflows:

1. In n8n, a workflow has a POST webhook trigger. This node accepts whatever JSON data is passed to it.

2. In the webhook node's Notes field, there are instructions for the LLM explaining what parameters the tool expects. CAAL reads these notes and presents them to the LLM as the tool's description. This is the description in the calendar_get_events webhook notes:

Get calendar events. Parameters: start_date and end_date in YYYY-MM-DD format. 
Note: end_date is EXCLUSIVE, so to get events for a single day, set end_date to the NEXT day. 
Example: for January 16th events, use start_date=2026-01-16, end_date=2026-01-17.

4. When you say "Check my calendar for today," the LLM interprets your request and generates a tool call like:
   calendar_get_events(start_date: "2026-01-21", end_date: "2026-01-22")

5. CAAL then makes an HTTP POST to your n8n webhook with those parameters as JSON:
   {"start_date": "2026-01-21", "end_date": "2026-01-22"}

6. Back in n8n, the webhook receives that JSON. A Code node is used to parse the parameters. Here's the actual code from calendar_get_events:

// Handle both JSON string and object formats
let data;

if (typeof items[0].json.body === 'string') {
  data = JSON.parse(items[0].json.body);
} else if (typeof items[0].json === 'object' && items[0].json.start_date) {
  data = items[0].json;
} else if (typeof items[0].json.body === 'object') {
  data = items[0].json.body;
} else {
  data = items[0].json;
}

return [{ json: { start_date: data.start_date, end_date: data.end_date } }];

5. This parsing is flexible to accept strings or objects because LLMs can format tool calls slightly differently - sometimes nesting in body, sometimes not. The code handles all cases.

6. The extracted parameters, in this case start_date and end_date are then passed to downstream nodes (like the Google Calendar node).

The magic is in the Notes field in the Webhook node - that's where you teach the LLM what parameters your workflow needs!

Hopefully that makes sense. Let me know what is still not making sense.

P.S. Stay tuned on an upcoming release that is going to make it possible to install new tools (skills) with one click, so you don’t have to build all your own. Super excited about this.

[nerd8east-a11y]

Thanks for the explanation. It makes more sense now. I have been playing around with adding events to my google calendar, but it has been hit or miss. I have setup the workflow with the webhook and made sure the name matches the URL path and CAAL still cannot see it. Is there another step that needs to be done when adding completely new workflows? Looking forward to the next version :)

[cmac86]

Need to make sure you save and publish the workflow to make it active and also enable MCP on the workflow to make it so CAAL will discover it.