External hooks

File-based configuration

You can add _FILE to individual variables to provide their configuration in a separate file. Refer to Keeping sensitive data in separate files for more details.

You can define external hooks that n8n executes whenever a specific operation runs. Refer to External hooks for the full reference, including available hooks and file formatting.

Variable	Type	Default	Description
EXTERNAL_HOOK_FILES	String	-	Files containing backend external hooks. Provide multiple files separated by the character defined in EXTERNAL_HOOK_FILES_SEPARATOR.
EXTERNAL_HOOK_FILES_SEPARATOR	String	:	Separator character for EXTERNAL_HOOK_FILES. Use ; on Windows to avoid conflicts with drive-letter paths like C:\.
EXTERNAL_FRONTEND_HOOKS_URLS	String	-	URLs to files containing frontend external hooks. Provide multiple URLs as a colon-separated list (":").