Workflow Note 🆎

ComfyUI's sharing culture runs on one absurdly generous trick: the graph is embedded in the output PNG, so a single image carries its own workflow. What it doesn't carry is the answer to "why won't it run on my machine". Workflow Note 🆎 is that answer, stuck to the canvas where the person opening your graph will see it.

What it actually does

It's a card with a title banner, a Markdown how-to, a list of the models the workflow needs - each with a download link and the folder it belongs in - the node packs it depends on, and your links. Nothing executes. It has no outputs and is never part of the prompt, which is why it's safe to leave sitting in the middle of a graph you're about to queue.

The genuinely useful bit isn't the text, it's the checking. Every model row and every node-pack row is validated against the machine you're opening the workflow on:

• Model rows group under a 📂 ComfyUI/models/<folder> heading, so "where does this file go" is answered on the same line as the button. A dot beside each row is the check - teal found, red missing, grey not checked (no folder set, or this install has no such folder). A found file swaps its Download button for an ✓ installed pill. Files in subfolders count, because the loaders find them there too.
• Pack rows name one probe node class (any node the pack registers, e.g. AUSBOSS_NODES_LoraLoader). If that class is registered on your install, the pack shows ✓ installed; otherwise it's flagged missing with a link. There's a Detect from this workflow button in the editor that lists every custom pack the open graph uses, so the list can't drift out of date with the graph you're shipping.

That's a direct hit on the single most-reported friction in this ecosystem: you download a workflow, load it, and get a wall of red missing nodes. Manager solves the installation half. This solves the "what am I even supposed to install, and where does the file go" half - on the card, before the first run, without a Discord thread.

The one input

note - a multiline STRING holding the whole card as JSON: title, subtitle, author, Markdown body, model rows, pack rows, links. You will basically never type into it. Click the ✎ on the card (or right-click → Edit Workflow Note) and use the form; the editor has a JSON toggle for copy-pasting cards between workflows. Ctrl+Enter saves, Esc cancels.

Because the card lives in an ordinary widget, it rides save/load, undo, copy/paste and the API format the same way any other value does. Paste a card from someone else's workflow and it arrives intact.

Layout → Banner strips the card down to just the title, which makes the same node double as a section label for a stage or a column - a straight upgrade on the default note node, which is a text box with a colour. Markdown is a deliberate subset: headings, bold, italic, inline code, http(s) links, - and 1. lists, rules, fenced code. Accent colour tints the banner; empty keeps the pack teal.

Limits worth knowing

The file check is a lookup against ComfyUI's model lists, not a hash. A same-named file of a different version passes as installed. It tells you the file exists and where - it can't tell you it's the right quant or the right finetune.

Sizes are whatever the author typed. The node doesn't fetch them, so a 12 GB model can be labelled 6 GB and nobody notices until the download.

Refresh after moving files. Hit ↻ check files on the card, or ComfyUI's own R. Rows that were grey because a folder didn't exist stay grey until you do.

And one that matters if you ship a card someone else wrote: every string on it is somebody else's text, rendered as text, never as HTML, with only http(s) URLs becoming clickable buttons. A pasted card can't inject anything into your graph - but it can lie about where a link goes, so hover before you download.

Installing it

ComfyUI Manager → search AusBoss, or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/ausboss/ComfyUI-AusBoss.git

Restart, then hard-refresh with Ctrl+Shift+R so the card renderer loads. No model downloads, no pip extras, ComfyUI 0.27.1 minimum. Since the note never executes, it won't appear in an API-format prompt - if you export a graph for API use, the card is documentation for the humans and gets dropped from the request.