Short String

Short String is the single-line sibling of the pack's regular String node. Same idea - name a value, reference it elsewhere by name - but the value field here is a single-line input instead of a multiline text box. If you're setting something short like a tag, a style name, or a filename fragment rather than a paragraph of prompt text, this is the tidier version.

Why you'd reach for it

The regular String node gives you a big multiline box for value, which is the right call for prompt paragraphs but overkill (and a little annoying to click into) for something that's genuinely one word or a short phrase - "cyberpunk", "v2", "night". Short String keeps the same "declare it once, reference it by name" pattern from the Variables for Comfy UI pack, just sized for short values. It's the node you reach for when the multiline box on String feels like using a shipping crate to hold a paperclip.

How it actually works

Same mechanism as every other variable node in this pack: it's meant to sit inline on your CLIP wire, not off in a corner. Route your checkpoint's CLIP output through it before it reaches your CLIP Text Encode node(s). ComfyUI executes backward from your output nodes - Save Image, Preview Image, whatever's actually producing your final result - pulling in only what those depend on. Anything with no path to an output simply never runs. Splicing this node into the CLIP chain is what guarantees it fires in time for whatever downstream node reads its value.

Inputs and outputs

• variable - the name you'll reference it by later, single line.
• value - the short text itself, also single line (this is the whole point of the node versus the regular String).
• clip - your CLIP passthrough. Wire it in; it's what forces execution.

It outputs CLIP (passed through unchanged, so you keep chaining downstream) and STRING (the value you set, if you want to feed it somewhere directly instead of, or in addition to, referencing it by placeholder).

Installing it

Through ComfyUI Manager, search "Variables for Comfy UI." Or manually:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/yolanother/DTAIComfyVariables

Restart ComfyUI. Per the README, the only dependency is ComfyUI itself - no model downloads, no extra Python packages.

Common issues

Off the CLIP chain, it just won't run. This is the pack-wide gotcha: leave clip unconnected, or set this node somewhere with nothing depending on it downstream, and ComfyUI never executes it. Whatever placeholder it was supposed to fill stays literal text.

There's also a "NoClip" variant - don't grab it by accident. The pack ships DTSingleLineStringVariableNoClip, which drops the CLIP passthrough entirely and, per its own schema, has no outputs at all. If you're not deliberately reaching for that variant, this one - the version with CLIP in and out - is almost always the one you want, since it's the one guaranteed to actually run.

Shared-namespace collisions. These are the pack's "shared global variables," which means a flat namespace across your whole graph. Reuse a variable name across two nodes and one quietly overwrites the other depending on execution order - keep names unique.

Thin community support. Small, single-maintainer pack with barely any Reddit or issue-tracker history. If you hit something odd, reading the node's source directly will usually get you further than searching for someone else's thread about it.