Using AI tools (Cursor, Claude Code etc) for Node-RED development & testing – experiences?

flipzz
Thu, 14 Aug 2025 13:27:04 +0000
General

Hi all,

We run Node-RED in a multi-instance setup with:

We manage everything with Git directly in the Node-RED user folder (we don’t use the Node-RED’s project feature).

Flows and custom nodes are in GitHub (source control).

GitHub Actions build Docker images.

Deployment to multiple Node-RED instances (dev/stage/prod).

We’re now looking to use AI tools/agents like Cursor, Claude Code, and GitHub Copilot more in our way of working in general. But we are not sure how to do this in Node-RED in a good way. For example to help write Function nodes, develop flow structures, generate tests, and refactor flows.

One of the challenges we’re facing is the Node-RED file structure:

Everything sits in one large flows.json file.

To merge pull requests of the .json can often be tricky.

Diffs in PRs are hard to review — small logic changes get buried in layout/ID noise.

Would like to see more examples of how others structure their flows to make them AI-friendly and diff-friendly.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has good experience with handling this kind of scenarios. I know about that it is possible to get one .json-flow per flow-tab using external modules but I am not sure that that would solve this.

If you have examples, repo structures, or tips that work in practice, it would be great to see them.

Thanks!

3 posts - 3 participants