Install n8n-nodes-privent, configure the Privent API credential, and run a four-node tokenize → score → detokenize chain end-to-end.
Drop Privent into your n8n workflow to tokenize PII and secrets before they reach an LLM, then detokenize at trusted egress.
Confirm you have a compatible n8n instance and an active Privent AGENT_SDK key.
Pick the path that matches your hosting model. All three result in the same set of nodes loaded into the editor.
Start n8n with community packages enabled, then install the package from the editor.
docker run -d --name n8n \ -p 5678:5678 \ -e N8N_COMMUNITY_PACKAGES_ENABLED=true \ -e N8N_COMMUNITY_PACKAGES_ALLOW_TOOL_USAGE=true \ -v ~/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n \ n8nio/n8n:latest
Cloud-managed installs follow the same UI flow — no infrastructure changes required.
Install the package directly into the n8n custom-extensions directory when the editor cannot reach npm.
mkdir -p ~/.n8n/nodes cd ~/.n8n/nodes npm init -y npm install n8n-nodes-privent N8N_CUSTOM_EXTENSIONS=~/.n8n/nodes n8n start
Create a Privent API credential in n8n so every Privent node authenticates against your organization.
A minimal four-node chain that tokenizes a prompt, scores its risk, and detokenizes the result before egress.
Generates a session ID and registers an in-memory vault for the run. Place this immediately after your trigger.
Reads the configured text field and replaces sensitive values with [KIND_NNN] placeholders. Returns the tokenized text plus an entity list and risk score.
Optional standalone scoring. Useful as a tool node for AI Agents or as a Switch input to gate high-risk items into a review branch.
Resolves [KIND_NNN] tokens back to the original values right before a trusted egress sink (HTTP Request, database, internal API).
Input "Hi, my email is alice@acme.com and SSN is 123-45-6789. Card: 4111-1111-1111-1111." After Tokenize "Hi, my email is [EMAIL_001] and SSN is [SSN_001]. Card: [CREDIT_CARD_001]." After Detokenize at egress "Hi, my email is alice@acme.com and SSN is 123-45-6789. Card: 4111-1111-1111-1111."
Confirm the integration is wired correctly and your traffic is reaching real Privent ML — not the local fallback.
Use a string with mixed entities such as "alice@acme.com / 123-45-6789 / 4111-1111-1111-1111". Execute the workflow once via the manual trigger.
The text field should contain [EMAIL_NNN], [SSN_NNN], and [CREDIT_CARD_NNN] placeholders. The privent.entities array should list the three detections with confidence > 0.8.
On the Risk Check node output, the privent.model field must NOT equal fallback. A real model identifier means traffic reached Privent Cloud and the auth chain is healthy.
The Detokenize node output text should match the original prompt byte-for-byte. Any drift indicates a session ID mismatch or a vault lookup miss.
Common issues and how to resolve them.
The package was published to npm but never installed on this n8n instance. Open Settings → Community Nodes and install n8n-nodes-privent. Self-host docker also requires N8N_COMMUNITY_PACKAGES_ENABLED=true at boot.
The AGENT_SDK key is missing, malformed, or revoked. Confirm the key is active in the Privent dashboard and that it is an AGENT_SDK key — extension keys are scoped differently and will fail here.
The Privent Cloud call timed out or the circuit breaker is open. Check the workflow logs for PRIVENT_ML_FAIL_OPEN events. Confirm api.privent.ai is reachable from the n8n host and that the AGENT_SDK key is still active.
The session ID at Detokenize does not match the one used at Tokenize. Re-check the Session ID expression — both nodes should reference {{$('Privent Session').item.json.sessionId}}.
In queue mode, in-memory vaults are scoped per worker. Switch the credential's Vault Backend to Privent Cloud so token state is shared across workers.
Add --ignore-scripts --omit=optional to the npm install when running the manual install path. The n8n image already bundles isolated-vm; community packages don't need to rebuild it.
