Skip to main content

Create daily faceless YouTube Shorts with Groq, SamAutomation and Google Sheets

Workflow preview

Workflow preview
100%
Create daily faceless YouTube Shorts with Groq, SamAutomation and Google Sheets preview
Open on n8n.io

1. Workflow Overview

Quick Overview This workflow runs daily to generate a YouTube Shorts topic and script with Groq, render a faceless vertical video via SamAutomation (images, voiceover, subtitles), upload it to YouT...

Best for

  • Content Creation automation workflows
  • Multimodal AI automation workflows
  • advanced n8n builders looking for reusable templates

Tools used

n8n-nodes-base.scheduletrigger, n8n-nodes-base.googlesheets, n8n-nodes-base.httprequest, n8n-nodes-base.code, n8n-nodes-base.wait, n8n-nodes-base.if, n8n-nodes-base.stickynote

Source and attribution

This workflow is cataloged by N8N Workflows and links back to its original n8n.io source page by Utkarsh Kapoor.

Original n8n.io source

1.1 Workflow description

Title
Create daily faceless YouTube Shorts with Groq, SamAutomation and Google Sheets
Workflow name
Create daily faceless YouTube Shorts with Groq, SamAutomation and Google Sheets

Quick Overview

This workflow runs daily to generate a YouTube Shorts topic and script with Groq, render a faceless vertical video via SamAutomation (images, voiceover, subtitles), upload it to YouTube, and track status in Google Sheets.

How it works

  1. Runs every day at 10:00 on a schedule.
  2. Reads niche, sub-niche, and voice settings from a Google Sheets “Config” tab.
  3. Calls the Groq Chat Completions API to generate three Shorts topic ideas and selects the first topic.
  4. Appends the selected topic to a Google Sheets “Topic Bank” tab with status set to “scripting,” then calls Groq again to generate a scene-based script plus YouTube metadata.
  5. Builds a SamAutomation render payload that generates Flux images, adds TTS voiceover, and burns word-level subtitles into a 1080×1920 video.
  6. Starts a SamAutomation render job and polls until the status is “done,” then captures the hosted MP4 URL.
  7. Uploads the video to YouTube with the generated title, description, and tags, and updates the Google Sheets “Topic Bank” row to “published” with a timestamp.

Setup

  1. Create credentials for Groq (HTTP Header Auth with Authorization: Bearer <GROQ_API_KEY>) and SamAutomation (HTTP Header Auth with X-API-Key: <SAM_AUTOMATION_KEY>).
  2. Connect Google Sheets OAuth2 and update the spreadsheet URL/ID in the Google Sheets nodes, with tabs named “Config” (selected_niche, selected_sub_niche, voice_id) and “Topic Bank” (date, niche, topic_title, hook_line, angle, target_emotion, status, published_at).
  3. Connect YouTube OAuth2, enable the YouTube Data API v3 in Google Cloud, and ensure your OAuth scopes allow uploading (for example youtube.upload).
  4. Review the YouTube upload settings (privacy status, categoryId, language) and adjust the daily cron schedule time if needed.

1.2 Logical Blocks

This catalog entry is organized from the workflow JSON. The node-level section below shows the executable blocks available for review before importing the template.

2. Block-by-Block Analysis

Block 1 - Daily Schedule

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.scheduleTrigger - scheduleTrigger
Config choices
Version 1.2

Block 2 - Read Config

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.googleSheets - googleSheets
Config choices
Version 4.5

Block 3 - Generate Topics

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest - httpRequest
Config choices
Version 4.2

Block 4 - Parse Topic

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.code - code
Config choices
Version 2

Block 5 - Log Topic

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.googleSheets - googleSheets
Config choices
Version 4.5

Block 6 - Write Script

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest - httpRequest
Config choices
Version 4.2

Block 7 - Build Video Payload

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.code - code
Config choices
Version 2

Block 8 - Render Video — SamAutomation

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest - httpRequest
Config choices
Version 4.2

Block 9 - Wait 30s

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.wait - wait
Config choices
Version 1.1

Block 10 - Check Render Status

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest - httpRequest
Config choices
Version 4.2

Block 11 - Video Ready?

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.if - if
Config choices
Version 2

Block 12 - Wait More

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.wait - wait
Config choices
Version 1.1

Block 13 - Prepare Upload

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.code - code
Config choices
Version 2

Block 14 - Upload to YouTube

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest - httpRequest
Config choices
Version 4.2

Block 15 - Update Topic Bank

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.googleSheets - googleSheets
Config choices
Version 4.5

Block 16 - Sticky Note

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote - stickyNote
Config choices
Version 1

Block 17 - Sticky Note1

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote - stickyNote
Config choices
Version 1

Block 18 - Sticky Note2

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote - stickyNote
Config choices
Version 1

Block 19 - Sticky Note3

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote - stickyNote
Config choices
Version 1

Block 20 - Sticky Note4

Type / Role
n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote - stickyNote
Config choices
Version 1

3. Summary Table

Workflow Create daily faceless YouTube Shorts with Groq, SamAutomation and Google Sheets
Complexity advanced
Nodes 20
Categories Content Creation, Multimodal AI
Author Utkarsh Kapoor
Published 15 Jun 2026

4. Reproducing the Workflow from Scratch

  1. 1. Download the workflow JSON

    Use the JSON export at /data/workflows/16358/16358.json as the source template for this automation.

  2. 2. Import the template into n8n

    Open n8n, import the downloaded JSON, and review each node before activating the workflow.

  3. 3. Configure credentials and variables

    Replace placeholder credentials, API keys, webhook URLs, account IDs, and environment-specific values with your own settings.

  4. 4. Test with sample data

    Run the workflow manually or in a staging workspace, inspect node output, and confirm downstream systems receive the expected data.

  5. 5. Activate and monitor

    Enable the workflow only after testing, then monitor executions, errors, and rate limits during the first production runs.

5. General Notes & Resources

Review imported nodes carefully before activation. This catalog entry is intended to help you inspect the workflow structure, understand required services, and find related templates faster.

Node names, credentials, schedules, webhook paths, and external service limits may need adjustment for your workspace.

Frequently asked questions

What does Create daily faceless YouTube Shorts with Groq, SamAutomation and Google Sheets do?

Quick Overview This workflow runs daily to generate a YouTube Shorts topic and script with Groq, render a faceless vertical video via SamAutomation (images, voiceover, subtitles), upload it to YouT...

What do I need before importing this workflow?

Review the workflow JSON, configure any required credentials in n8n, and test the automation in a safe workspace before using it in production.

Can I customize this workflow?

Yes. Use the block-by-block analysis and the downloadable JSON to inspect each node, then adjust credentials, prompts, schedules, filters, or destinations for your Content Creation, Multimodal AI use case.