External Lora (ComfyUI Deploy)

LoRAs are small - tens to a couple hundred MB - which makes them the one model type it's actually reasonable to let API callers swap per request. "External Lora" is the ComfyUI Deploy input node for that: it exposes a dropdown of the LoRAs installed on the machine, and it can also download a LoRA from a URL on the fly, returning the filename for your LoraLoader to apply. Character LoRAs, style LoRAs, "let the customer bring their own" - this is how that works in a deployed workflow.

It's the LoRA sibling of the External Checkpoint node, with one meaningful upgrade: it lets you pin a save name, so a frequently-used LoRA is downloaded once and reused instead of re-fetched on every call. For an API that serves a handful of known LoRAs, that's the difference between a snappy endpoint and one that redownloads the same file forever.

How it works

Two paths. If lora_url starts with http, the node downloads it into ComfyUI's models/loras folder - as lora_save_name if you gave one (skipping the download when that file already exists), otherwise as a fresh uuid filename. If you supply a bearer_token, it's sent as an Authorization: Bearer … header, which is how you handle credentialed downloads (Civitai and private hosts). If there's no URL, the node returns whatever default_lora_name holds - the dropdown of installed LoRAs.

Inputs and output

• input_id - default input_lora. The key callers use to address this input.
• default_lora_name - an installed LoRA for the no-URL case.
• lora_save_name - pin a filename to enable the skip-if-exists cache.
• lora_url - where to fetch the LoRA from.
• bearer_token - for authenticated downloads.
• Optional: display_name, description.

Output: path (wildcard *), wired into your LoraLoader's lora name input.

Installing it

Same pack install:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/BennyKok/comfyui-deploy.git

Restart ComfyUI, or install "ComfyUI Deploy" via ComfyUI Manager. No models bundled - the dropdown lists whatever's already in your models/loras folder.

Where people get burned

The bearer-token field is easy to misuse: it only applies when lora_url is set, and it's only for downloads. People paste their Civitai API key in and wonder why the node ignores it when they pick a LoRA from the dropdown - right, no URL, no download, no token needed. Keep it for the URL path only, and remember that key is visible in your workflow JSON; treat it like a secret, because it is one.

Second, pin lora_save_name. Without it, every URL-driven call downloads a fresh uuid-named copy - the same orphan-file creep as the checkpoint node, just smaller. And there's no graceful fallback when a URL download fails: no URL handling means the node just returns the default, so a dead LoRA link quietly produces a run without your LoRA. Check the console when the style mysteriously vanishes.