📥 Load checkpoint FLUX Schnell (+Download from CivitAi)

This is a normal Load Checkpoint node with one twist: instead of picking from your local models/checkpoints folder, you're picking from a list sourced from CivitAI, filtered to FLUX Schnell checkpoints. Pick one you don't have yet, and the node downloads it for you before loading it - no separate trip to a browser, no manual wget into the right folder.

It's part of a small family of these - the pack has matching versions for SD 1.5, SDXL, Pony, and FLUX Dev - and each one lands its downloads in its own subfolder so they don't get mixed up with checkpoints you manage yourself: this one specifically writes to ComfyUI/models/checkpoints/Bjornulf_civitAI/flux_s. Once it's downloaded, it stays there, and you can keep using this node to load it, or point a plain core Load Checkpoint node at the same file directly.

The catch worth knowing upfront

The author flags this specific node - the FLUX Schnell version - as work in progress in his own README: "need to manually clean up list, diffusers, etc..." It's a fair warning. FLUX checkpoints on CivitAI come in a messier variety of formats than SD 1.5/SDXL/Pony ever did (fp8, GGUF, diffusers-format folders rather than single safetensors), and this node's list wasn't necessarily curated to filter that mess out. If a pick from the dropdown fails to load cleanly, that's the likely reason - not something you did wrong.

The inputs and outputs that matter

Two required fields: image - and yes, you pick your model by clicking through preview thumbnails rather than reading filenames, which is a genuinely nice touch when you're browsing checkpoints you've never used before and want to see an example render first; and civitai_token, your API token from your CivitAI account settings, required for the download step to authenticate.

You get back the standard trio - model, clip, vae - wired exactly like a normal checkpoint loader, plus two extras: name, the checkpoint's display name as a string (handy for labeling saved outputs), and civitai_url, a direct link back to the model's CivitAI page, useful if you want to check the license or credit the creator later.

Installing it

Through ComfyUI Manager: search Bjornulf_custom_nodes, install, restart. Or by hand:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/justUmen/Bjornulf_custom_nodes

Install the shared requirements.txt - this node specifically needs civitai-py, which is in there by default. You'll also need a free CivitAI account to generate the civitai_token this node requires; grab one from your account settings page before your first run.

Where people get burned

Downloads can be slow or stall outright - CivitAI's infrastructure isn't the fastest or most consistent host, especially for large FLUX-format checkpoints, so don't be surprised if a first-time download takes a while or occasionally needs a retry. If a checkpoint you picked fails to load at all after downloading, check whether it's actually a diffusers-format release rather than a single-file safetensors - that's exactly the "clean up the list" problem the author warned about, and it's a CivitAI cataloging issue this node inherits rather than something it can fully filter out on its own.