Maybe I will build some dashboard for my personal notes. E.g. I want to see statistics in a list view. I think the UX of Substack is annoying right now cuz you have to click into every Note to retrieve info about the statistics.
That sounds like a great idea, Lorenz! 🚀 I totally get the frustration with having to click into each Note - your dashboard could really make things smoother. Let me know once you start building it, I’d be happy to help.
Yes!!! I had AI built a chrome extension for me to use locally. Most of my notes were scheduled, though to be fair, even with scheduling I still don’t post that much :)
Interesting read on handling scenarios without an official API in place — creative solutions are often required. If you're scaling up or formalizing integration, partnering with a robust api development service can help you build secure endpoints, maintain performance, and ensure long-term adaptability: https://www.cleveroad.com/api-development-services/
This is next level....I just set an RSS feed up with n8n using a template and I don't code. I was wondering if you show how to do this to get posts to substack automatically. I wanted to create an automatic post from TikTok to substack so that I am keeping it up dated... Just wondering if there's anything like that. Thank you for this work. Wow! next level shizzle
Even if I dislike the terminology, this is truly mind-blowing!
I love that you open-sourced it, and the work you did is unbelievable.
I'm amazed that something like this exists, and I'd love to utilize it - even just for promotional purposes - in my publication https://shipwithai.substack.com. Not only would it benefit us, but it also has huge potential in the topic we manage, particularly in creating & building side projects to become Micro SaaS.
Thanks so much, Manuel. I really appreciate your kind words 🙏
Your publication looks amazing. I love the Micro SaaS angle. I’d be excited to see how you might use this project there. And of course, if you have any ideas, I’d be more than happy to hear them 😃
Reverse-engineering APIs is a tech band-aid, not a strategy. It's like trying to tune a piano with a hammer. Legal ramifications aside, it's an unsustainable approach. Seen too many startups crash this way.
Totally agree it’s risky if reverse-engineering becomes the whole strategy ♟️ But used intentionally, it can be a powerful way to learn, explore, or validate ideas-especially when official APIs are missing or limited. It’s not the endgame, but sometimes it’s the spark ✨
Great breakdown! I used to use this technique for some of my old projects. The only problem with this approach is that if we want to create apps or workflows to sell, like in your example to help manage Substack: users need to provide a cookie, which they may be afraid to do due to security risks. But aside from that concern, we can create a lot of useful things to help grow Substack newsletters more effectively.
Thanks for the kind and thoughtful words - really appreciate it! 🙏🏻 And totally agree that asking for cookies can be a blocker, especially for non-technical users. Curious if you’ve come across any other ways to handle auth in setups like this? 😃
This looks super cool! I gave it a quick peruse, will come back later when I have the time to grok it in fullness. I hope I can make use of it in this Live Video Transcript Compiler project I'm working on, but not sure if I can without a lot of study. If not, and my problem sounds like it would be a quick fix for you, I'd be happy to Share my project with you, along with credit for its creation.
Mind if I just write a quick Note for now, and send me a quick response? I don't know n8n, just Google Apps Script, and I've only started getting my feet wet with APIs.
The project is a Google Sheet with a bit of GAS. You import a transcript Substack's AI has made of your Live Video, and it lays out the timestamps in one column, and the bits of text it creates in another. Wherever it finds punctuation marks at the end of these phrases, it returns them to another column. By changing these marks manually, you can combine into single sentences phrases AI saw as separate sentences (ie, changing periods to commas, semi-colons or dashes) or vice versa; the Script changes the marks and does the change between capital and lower-case letters for you. By clicking checkboxes in adjacent columns, you can then combine the sentences into paragraphs wherever you please, and likewise insert timestamps in selected spots.
Now, here is my sticking point: The timestamps are NOT hyperlinks as I want them to be. I can generate working hyperlinks in the Sheet, but when copied and pasted into Substack, they turn into plain text. There doesn't seem to be any way around this; Substack makes you manually turn them all into hyperlinks. I did this for the very first timestamp here, and left the others alone.
Love the fact that you open-sourced it 👍
Thank you so much, Lorenz! 😊 I’m really glad you appreciate it. Do you already have something in mind you’d like to build with it?
Maybe I will build some dashboard for my personal notes. E.g. I want to see statistics in a list view. I think the UX of Substack is annoying right now cuz you have to click into every Note to retrieve info about the statistics.
That sounds like a great idea, Lorenz! 🚀 I totally get the frustration with having to click into each Note - your dashboard could really make things smoother. Let me know once you start building it, I’d be happy to help.
Enjoyed the walk through even though it’s a lot for my non-technical brain 😁
Love it
This is exactly how I would figure out a hidden API :)
So there are two of us 😃 Have you tried doing it before?
Yes!!! I had AI built a chrome extension for me to use locally. Most of my notes were scheduled, though to be fair, even with scheduling I still don’t post that much :)
And what do you use for scheduling now?
Still the same extension.
Interesting read on handling scenarios without an official API in place — creative solutions are often required. If you're scaling up or formalizing integration, partnering with a robust api development service can help you build secure endpoints, maintain performance, and ensure long-term adaptability: https://www.cleveroad.com/api-development-services/
Brilliant detailed detective work. Welll done!
Thank you, Matthew! 🙏
Curious, have you written any beginner-level guide / project on how to automate with n8n?
Not a full beginner guide yet 🙂 but I’ve been thinking of putting one together. What kind of project would you find most useful to start with?
This is next level....I just set an RSS feed up with n8n using a template and I don't code. I was wondering if you show how to do this to get posts to substack automatically. I wanted to create an automatic post from TikTok to substack so that I am keeping it up dated... Just wondering if there's anything like that. Thank you for this work. Wow! next level shizzle
Great digging
Even if I dislike the terminology, this is truly mind-blowing!
I love that you open-sourced it, and the work you did is unbelievable.
I'm amazed that something like this exists, and I'd love to utilize it - even just for promotional purposes - in my publication https://shipwithai.substack.com. Not only would it benefit us, but it also has huge potential in the topic we manage, particularly in creating & building side projects to become Micro SaaS.
Thanks so much, Manuel. I really appreciate your kind words 🙏
Your publication looks amazing. I love the Micro SaaS angle. I’d be excited to see how you might use this project there. And of course, if you have any ideas, I’d be more than happy to hear them 😃
Oh thanks , that would be amazing!
Nice! Definitely going to check this out!
this is great would love to build some automations with it
Thanks, Ibrahim! 🚀 Would love to hear what kind of automations you’re thinking of building!
Reverse-engineering APIs is a tech band-aid, not a strategy. It's like trying to tune a piano with a hammer. Legal ramifications aside, it's an unsustainable approach. Seen too many startups crash this way.
Totally agree it’s risky if reverse-engineering becomes the whole strategy ♟️ But used intentionally, it can be a powerful way to learn, explore, or validate ideas-especially when official APIs are missing or limited. It’s not the endgame, but sometimes it’s the spark ✨
Great breakdown! I used to use this technique for some of my old projects. The only problem with this approach is that if we want to create apps or workflows to sell, like in your example to help manage Substack: users need to provide a cookie, which they may be afraid to do due to security risks. But aside from that concern, we can create a lot of useful things to help grow Substack newsletters more effectively.
Thanks for the kind and thoughtful words - really appreciate it! 🙏🏻 And totally agree that asking for cookies can be a blocker, especially for non-technical users. Curious if you’ve come across any other ways to handle auth in setups like this? 😃
Finally got my n8n Substack notes poster automated!
This looks super cool! I gave it a quick peruse, will come back later when I have the time to grok it in fullness. I hope I can make use of it in this Live Video Transcript Compiler project I'm working on, but not sure if I can without a lot of study. If not, and my problem sounds like it would be a quick fix for you, I'd be happy to Share my project with you, along with credit for its creation.
Mind if I just write a quick Note for now, and send me a quick response? I don't know n8n, just Google Apps Script, and I've only started getting my feet wet with APIs.
The project is a Google Sheet with a bit of GAS. You import a transcript Substack's AI has made of your Live Video, and it lays out the timestamps in one column, and the bits of text it creates in another. Wherever it finds punctuation marks at the end of these phrases, it returns them to another column. By changing these marks manually, you can combine into single sentences phrases AI saw as separate sentences (ie, changing periods to commas, semi-colons or dashes) or vice versa; the Script changes the marks and does the change between capital and lower-case letters for you. By clicking checkboxes in adjacent columns, you can then combine the sentences into paragraphs wherever you please, and likewise insert timestamps in selected spots.
My first product of this process is here: https://greenwanderer.substack.com/p/transcribed-update-from-the-madhouse I just added to the top of it 2 screenshots of the Google Sheet.
Now, here is my sticking point: The timestamps are NOT hyperlinks as I want them to be. I can generate working hyperlinks in the Sheet, but when copied and pasted into Substack, they turn into plain text. There doesn't seem to be any way around this; Substack makes you manually turn them all into hyperlinks. I did this for the very first timestamp here, and left the others alone.
Would love to hear your thoughts!