vae pass

The Aegisflow VAE Pass is a one-in, one-out pass-through for the VAE - the model that turns latents into pixels (and pixels into latents) at the edges of the pipeline. It's part of the pack's "passer" family, and like the rest of them its whole value is architectural, not computational.

Why it exists

Every passer in this pack exists to fight the same problem: ComfyUI and some popular custom nodes try to "fix" open required inputs by auto-wiring whatever matching output is around - and with a VAE, an auto-wired guess can quietly give you washed-out decodes or a wrong-color image if it picks the wrong one. Because this passer's input is optional, it never triggers that autofixing. And it doubles as a nameable target for Use Everywhere / Anything Everywhere invisible-broadcast nodes: rename it, point a sender at it, and the VAE you loaded at the top of the graph arrives here without a visible wire.

The common shape: a modular workflow loads the checkpoint's VAE (or a separate VAE you specifically want - the "swap VAE" pattern) once, and every VAE Decode or VAE Encode section holds a VAE Pass on its receptor. It's the socket that says "this module wants a VAE here," and the plug that keeps a half-built template from erroring.

Inputs and outputs

• vae (VAE, optional) - passed through unchanged.
• Output: vae (VAE).

Leave the input empty and the output is None - fine while a sender fills it at runtime, an error if you wire an empty passer into a decoder.

Installing it

Same pack, same steps as all the others:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/aegis72/aegisflow_utility_nodes

Restart ComfyUI, or install "AegisFlow Utility Nodes" via ComfyUI Manager. No models to download; the pack adds no heavy dependencies.

Where people get burned

It won't load, swap, or convert a VAE - do that upstream. And respect the empty-socket rule: no input and no sender means no output, and VAE Decode is not graceful about receiving nothing. Treat it as a named mailbox for your VAE and it'll never surprise you.