Author:<\/strong> Jorge Pereira<\/p>\n\n\n\n Date:<\/strong> August 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tech Stack:<\/strong> n8n (Docker), Ollama, Open WebUI, JavaScript\/HTML, Windows 11<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal was to build an autonomous “Deep Research” agent capable of performing real-time web searches and returning professional, high-quality Markdown reports. I wanted a tool that behaved like Perplexity but lived in my own home lab environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before tackling the deployment, I designed the internal logic in n8n to ensure the data was accurate and highly structured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Building this in a Windows-based Docker environment presented several unique challenges that required specific workarounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first major roadblock was getting n8n to save files to my local Windows drive ( When I first connected n8n to Open WebUI, the interface worked, but the experience was poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To achieve the best user experience, I built a standalone Research Lab<\/strong> page. This eliminated the “middleman” AI and allowed for perfect rendering of complex data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This project proved that while local AI tools are powerful, the real value comes from the “plumbing”\u2014the webhooks, the permission fixes, and the custom UIs that make the data usable. I now have a private, high-speed research agent that provides better-formatted data than most commercial tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author: Jorge Pereira Date: August 2025 Tech Stack: n8n (Docker), Ollama, Open WebUI, JavaScript\/HTML, Windows 11 The Vision The goal was to build an autonomous “Deep Research” agent capable of performing real-time web searches and returning professional, high-quality Markdown reports. I wanted a tool that behaved like Perplexity but lived in my own home lab…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journey"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":17,"label":"Journey"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/FeaturedBuildLog-ResearchIAgent.png",1024,512,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Jorge Pereira","author_link":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/author\/jorge\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":17,"name":"Journey","slug":"journey","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":18,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":318,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":17,"category_count":318,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Journey","category_nicename":"journey","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":519642,"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519641\/revisions\/519642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jorgep.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Vision<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. The n8n Architecture: The Agent’s “Brain”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
POST<\/code> request. This makes the agent accessible to any external interface.<\/li>\n\n\n\n2. Technical Hurdles & Solutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Permission & File System Struggle<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
C:\\localdata\\dockerapps\\n8n-ollama\\data<\/code>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
node<\/code>), which Windows NTFS doesn’t recognize. This caused constant “Not Writable” errors.<\/li>\n\n\n\ndocker-compose.yml<\/code>, I unlocked the filesystem using N8N_BLOCKS_ENABLE_ALL=true<\/code> and eventually forced the container to run as user: root<\/code> to bypass all permission checks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nThe AI “Summarization” Trap<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
3. The Final Evolution: The Research Dashboard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Key Features of the Dashboard:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n