GenerateTimestamp

GenerateTimestamp is the most boring node in this pack, and that's a compliment. It has one optional input and one string output, and all it does is hand you the current time as text. If that sounds too trivial to install a custom node for, you've clearly never looked at a folder full of output_001.png and wondered which one is tonight's run. This is the fix for that.

It's part of fablestudio/ComfyUI-Showrunner-Utils, the utility set Fable Studio shipped for its Showrunner AI-TV pipeline - and once you're producing lots of frames per episode, per-run unique names stop being a nice-to-have and become survival. Every node here is a small production-toolbox helper, and this one earns its keep on day one.

How it works

The node evaluates the current local time when the graph runs and formats it with Python's standard strftime syntax. The default format_str is %Y%m%d-%H%M%S, which produces something like 20260816-143022 - sortable, unique to the second, and safe to use in a filename on every OS. That string flows out the STRING output.

The only input is format_str, and it's optional - if you're happy with the default you never touch it. If you want something friendlier, you're writing normal strftime:

%Y   four-digit year      %H   hour (00-23)
%m   month (01-12)        %M   minute (00-59)
%d   day (01-31)          %S   second (00-59)
%j   day of year          %f   microseconds

So %Y-%m-%d_%H%M gives you 2026-08-16_1430, and so on.

What to wire it into

The obvious move is feeding the STRING into a Save Image node's filename prefix, so every run writes to a unique file instead of clobbering the last one. Beyond that it's a small automation workhorse: prepend it to a workflow's title for run tracking, stick it in a log text node, or combine it with the pack's color node to name a batch after both its time and its palette. Batch runs are where it shines - each graph execution stamps a fresh value, so a whole batch shares one run-id and you can sort your outputs by when they happened.

Installing it

Same routine as the rest of the pack, and it's featherweight - the README lists no dependencies, no model files, nothing heavy. Use ComfyUI Manager and search for ComfyUI-Showrunner-Utils, or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/fablestudio/ComfyUI-Showrunner-Utils

then restart ComfyUI. Fair warning: the public repo has been serving a 404 recently, which points to a private or unpublished pack - if Manager can't find it, grab a copy of the code rather than hunting for a setup mistake that isn't yours.

The trap

Two, actually. First, the format string is strftime, not the {placeholder} templating you might know from dynamic-prompt nodes - {time} won't work, %H%M%S will. Second, the timestamp is stamped once per execution of the graph, not per batch item. If you run a batch of 20 and every image saves with the same run-id, that's by design; you get one timestamp per run, so pair it with a per-item counter or a batch node if you need each frame individually named.