Checkpoint Loader Small

Checkpoint Loader Small is the "classic" RvTools checkpoint loader - the one that behaves like ComfyUI's own Load Checkpoint and gives you model, VAE and CLIP as three separate outputs. Its one genuinely useful extra is a fourth output: model_name, the checkpoint's filename as a plain string. That tiny addition is worth the install alone if you've ever wanted a save node or metadata writer to record which checkpoint a render came from.

How it works

Same load_checkpoint_guess_config core as every ComfyUI loader. vae_name defaults to Baked VAE (use the checkpoint's own VAE) or you pick a separate VAE file. The stop_at_clip_layer widget (default -1, range -24 to -1) truncates the CLIP at that layer - -1 is the last layer, and going deeper like -2 is the SDXL convention some workflows want. It clones the loaded CLIP and applies the clip-layer setting before handing it out.

The inputs that matter

• ckpt_name - the checkpoint file.
• vae_name - Baked VAE or a specific VAE.
• stop_at_clip_layer - CLIP truncation; the one knob you'll actually fiddle with.

Outputs: model (MODEL), vae (VAE), clip (CLIP) - wire these into your sampler and CLIP Text Encode nodes exactly like stock - plus model_name (STRING) for filenames, metadata, or a "what's loaded" display.

Why this one instead of stock?

If all you want is model/vae/clip, ComfyUI's built-in loader does it. This node earns its place when you want the model_name string for downstream logic - pair it with a filename-prefix node to stamp checkpoint names into output paths, or feed model_name into a text-switch so your "model tag" stays in sync with what's loaded. It's also the non-pipe member of the family: everything else in this pack's loader lineup outputs a pipe, and this one breaks the bundle back out.

Installing

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/r-vage/ComfyUI-RvTools_v2

Restart ComfyUI or install via ComfyUI Manager (search "ComfyUI-RvTools_v2"). No model downloads.

Gotchas

It's a clone-with-extra-output of the stock loader, so it shares the stock loader's limitations: it guesses config from the checkpoint and doesn't handle the split unet + separate-CLIP world (Flux/SD3) - that's what Checkpoint Loader v3 (Pipe) is for. And pack-level notes: deprecated in favor of ComfyUI_Eclipse, and old v1-repo workflows reference differently-named nodes that can't be installed anymore. Otherwise this is one of the more future-proof nodes in the pack, because it's basically just ComfyUI core with a string glued on.