Email to Obsidian Git Pipeline — Session Complete

🎉 What We Built

A fully automated document pipeline that takes Claude-drafted project emails and files them into Gitea (Obsidian vault) and Google Drive simultaneously.

Gmail → n8n → Parse Email → Extract Frontmatter
                           ↓
                    Gitea (vault) ✅
                           ↓
                    GDrive (Jenny) ✅
                           ↓
                    Google Chat notification ✅

✅ Completed This Session

Gmail OAuth & Trigger

Created new OAuth 2.0 client in Google Console for n8n (separate from mail client OAuth)
Enabled Gmail API and Google Drive API
Gmail trigger polls every hour for unread emails matching subject filter
Processed emails get labeled n8n/processed and removed from INBOX

Email Parsing

HTML body extraction using `` tag to protect markdown formatting
HTML entity cleaning and sanitization
YAML frontmatter validation (checks for --- prefix)

Frontmatter Extraction

Custom parseYamlValue() function handles quoted and unquoted values
Defensive defaults for missing fields:
- project defaults to slugified email subject (strips [flags])
- path defaults to PBS/Inbox for malformed emails
Subject flag extraction: [flag1] = trigger, [flag2] = routing category

Email Subject Convention

[n8n] PBS Project - project name
[n8n] PBS Content - content idea
[n8n] Thought - quick capture

Gmail trigger filter: subject:[n8n] -label:n8n/processed
Switch node routes based on flag2 downstream

Gitea File Creation

Gitea deployed on staging with SQLite (lightweight, no extra MySQL container)
Healthcheck temporarily removed to allow initial setup via GUI
Files written via Gitea REST API using HTTP Request node
Auth: Header Auth with token YOUR_TOKEN format (not Bearer!)
Internal Docker hostname: http://gitea:3000/api/v1/

Google Drive Upload

Google Drive API enabled in Google Console
Markdown converted to binary using Convert to File node (Move Base64 String to File operation)
Files uploaded to pbs-planning folder
Same markdown content used (raw text, not base64 like Gitea)

Google Chat Notifications

Centralized notification sub-workflow with space selector
Payload: { title, message, status, space, timestamp }
Message format: 🌻 PBS Message: *title*\nmessage\n\n_timestamp_
Error Trigger node catches failures, routes to same notification sub-workflow
Spaces: webadmin, insta, automation

🔑 Key Learnings

Gitea auth uses token YOUR_TOKEN not Bearer in Authorization header
GDrive Upload requires binary data — use Convert to File node before GDrive node
Convert to File operation must be Move Base64 String to File not toText
Google APIs must be explicitly enabled per project even with OAuth credentials set up
n8n Error Trigger only fires on production executions, not manual test runs
Gmail labels are the underlying mechanism for folders — remove INBOX label to move emails
Gitea healthcheck uses API endpoint that only responds after initial setup wizard completes — chicken and egg problem with Traefik!
Pinned data in n8n doesn't always flow correctly through newly added nodes

🔧 Gitea Setup Notes

Running on staging with SQLite database
Admin user created via CLI: docker exec -it -u git gitea gitea admin user create
Must use -u git flag or Gitea complains about running as root
Initial healthcheck pointed to /api/v1/version which 404s before setup — temporarily removed to allow Traefik routing
After setup complete, healthcheck can be restored

📋 Next Steps

Restore Gitea healthcheck now that setup is complete
Connect Obsidian Git plugin to Gitea repo on homelab
Build Switch node routing for flag2 (PBS Content, Thought, etc.)
Migrate existing Google Chat webhook workflows to centralized sub-workflow
Add GDrive dynamic subfolder creation based on path frontmatter field
Deploy Gitea to production after staging validation
Explore Quartz for browser-based vault viewing (Jenny access)
Update Gmail trigger subject convention from [PBS Project] to [n8n] prefix

🏗️ Current Pipeline Architecture

Gmail (hourly poll)
  └── Filter: subject:[n8n] -label:n8n/processed
  └── Parse HTML body (extract  block)
  └── Validate YAML frontmatter
  └── Extract: project, path, flag2, emailId, subject
  └── Prepare file content
      ├── Gitea: base64 encoded → HTTP Request → /api/v1/repos/
      └── GDrive: base64 → Convert to File → GDrive Upload
  └── Label email: add n8n/processed, remove INBOX
  └── Notify: Google Chat automation space
  
Error Trigger (unconnected, auto-fires on error)
  └── Set error payload
  └── Notify: Google Chat automation space

Last Updated: 2026-03-24 Maintained by: Travis Session: Email to Obsidian Git Pipeline

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