Version detection broken since n8n 1.123.0 - /rest/settings no longer returns n8nVersion

[czlonkowski]

Problem

The /rest/settings endpoint no longer returns n8nVersion since n8n 1.123.0 (PR #22106). This was part of security hardening efforts leading up to n8n 2.0.

Our version detection in src/services/n8n-version.ts relies on this endpoint, causing:

• Health check reports stale/cached version
• Version-aware settings filtering may not work correctly on fresh connections

Current Behavior

curl https://n8n-instance.com/rest/settings

Returns only minimal public settings:

{
  "data": {
    "settingsMode": "public",
    "userManagement": {...},
    "sso": {...},
    "authCookie": {"secure": true},
    "previewMode": false,
    "enterprise": {...}
  }
}

No n8nVersion or versionCli field.

Impact

• Low - All functionality works correctly
• Version detection is used for:
  • Settings filtering (preventing "additional properties" errors on older n8n)
  • Health check version reporting (cosmetic)

Proposed Solutions

1. Feature Detection (Recommended)

   • Check for n8n 2.0 specific fields (versionId, activeVersionId, versionCounter) in workflow responses
   • Infer version range based on available features

2. Metrics Endpoint

   • Try /metrics endpoint if available (requires N8N_METRICS=true)
   • Parse version from Prometheus metrics

3. Graceful Degradation

   • If version unknown, assume latest and let API reject unsupported fields
   • Already partially implemented

References

• n8n Community: /rest/settings no longer returns instance statistics in v1.123.0
• n8n Community: N8N version in API feature request

Files Affected

• src/services/n8n-version.ts - Main version detection logic
• src/services/n8n-api-client.ts - Health check uses version info

Conceived by Romuald Członkowski - https://www.aiadvisors.pl/en

[czlonkowski]

Closing this — n8n intentionally removed version exposure from /rest/settings as part of a security hardening change in v1.123.0. This is expected upstream behavior, not something we can work around on our side.

We'll adapt our version detection strategy if needed in a future release, but this specific issue is resolved as won't-fix.