Document Workflows with Sticky Notes

n8n's Sticky Note node is an underused documentation tool. A well-placed sticky note explains why a workflow exists, when it runs, who owns it, and what to check when something breaks. Future you (or your teammate at 2 AM during an incident) will be grateful.

Real-world example: A standard documentation template applied to every workflow using three sticky notes.

Sticky Note 1 -- Workflow Overview (placed at the top-left of the canvas, large size, yellow):

## Orders - Sync to Warehouse - v2

**Owner:** Operations team (ops@company.com)
**Schedule:** Every 15 minutes via Cron trigger
**Last reviewed:** 2025-03-01

### What this does

Pulls new orders from Shopify (since last run), transforms them
into warehouse format, and pushes to the WMS API. Failed items
are logged to the error_orders table and retried on the next run.

### Dependencies

- Shopify API credentials: "Prod - Shopify Admin"
- WMS API credentials: "Prod - Warehouse API"
- Postgres: "Prod - App Database"
- Sub-workflow: "Slack - Send Formatted Alert - v2"

### Failure handling

- WMS API failures: retried 3x with backoff, then logged and alerted
- Shopify API failures: entire workflow retries in 5 minutes
- Alerts go to: #ops-alerts Slack channel
```text
**Sticky Note 2 -- Data Flow** (placed near the Transform stage, small size, blue):

```markdown

### Transform Stage

Shopify format → Warehouse format

Key mappings:
- order.id → external_order_id
- line_items[].sku → items[].product_code
- shipping_address → ship_to (flattened)
- order.created_at → order_date (reformatted to YYYY-MM-DD)
```text
**Sticky Note 3 -- Known Issues** (placed at the bottom, small size, red):

```markdown

### Known Issues / Tech Debt

- [ ] WMS API v2 migration planned for Q2 — will need endpoint updates
- [ ] Shopify rate limit hit during flash sales — need to implement queue
- [x] Fixed 2025-02-15: Null shipping address crash (added fallback)
```text
> **Tip: Sticky Note Sizing**
>
> Use large stickies for workflow-level documentation (overview, dependencies). Use small stickies for inline comments on specific node groups. Color-code consistently: yellow for overview, blue for technical notes, red for warnings and known issues.

Documentation in the workflow itself stays current because it is visible every time someone opens the workflow -- unlike external wiki pages that rot unnoticed.

**Related:** [Always Set an Error Workflow on Every Production Workflow](../error-handling-and-reliability/01-always-set-an-error-workflow-on-every-production-workflow.md) | [Use "Pin Data" to Freeze Node Output](../testing-and-debugging/01-use-pin-data-to-freeze-node-output.md)