Get DateTime

The name is not a metaphor. Get DateTime does exactly one thing: it hands you the current date, time, or both, as plain strings. No API, no key, no models, no sliders. It exists for the most boring problem in ComfyUI - running the same workflow twice and having the second batch silently overwrite the first because both files are called output.png.

That's a real itch. ComfyUI has never shipped a native "what time is it" node, and people have been asking for one since at least 2023, mostly because they want timestamped filenames or date-stamped subfolders so their outputs don't stomp each other. Get DateTime is one of the small packs that fills that gap. It's also the entire pack: the README openly says "right now there is only one node," so don't come here expecting a utility suite.

How it works

Under the hood there is no mechanism to speak of - just Python's datetime.datetime.now() evaluated when the node runs. The node formats that moment three ways:

• Date → 2026-08-15
• Time → 14-32-05
• DateTime → 2026-08-15_14-32-05

Notice what's missing: colons. The time is 14-32-05, not 14:32:05. That's deliberate and it's the reason this node exists - colons are illegal in most filenames, dashes and underscores aren't. The output is safe to paste straight into a filename prefix, which is exactly where you'll use it.

Inputs and outputs

There are no inputs - nothing to configure, no widgets, no settings. You add it, it sits there, and every time it executes it re-reads the clock.

The three STRING outputs - Date, Time, and DateTime - plug into any node that takes a string. Common wiring: feed DateTime into a filename-prefix builder or a custom save node that accepts a string input, or into a metadata node so your PNG records when it was generated. If you only need the day for a 2026-08-15 style folder, use Date.

Install

ComfyUI Manager is the easy route - search for "ComfyUI-CitronNodes" and install it. The README still labels Manager support "coming soon" and documents the manual path, which works either way:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/citronlegacy/ComfyUI-CitronNodes
# restart ComfyUI

Good news on the scary parts: requirements.txt lists zero external dependencies, there are no model files to download, and it's MIT licensed. This is one of the rare packs where "install" means "clone and restart," full stop. Find it in the node menu under Utility → Get DateTime.

Where people get burned

The one real trap is time zones - and it's not the node's fault. now() returns the clock of the machine actually running ComfyUI. If that's a remote box, a Docker container, or a Colab notebook in a different timezone than you, your timestamps will be "wrong" by however many hours. People hit this as the classic "my folders are a day ahead" problem. If your generated files seem misdated, check the host's clock and timezone, not the node.

One more honest caveat: since it has no inputs, if you re-run an unchanged workflow and the timestamp looks stale, that's ComfyUI's node cache reusing the previous result - force a re-run by toggling something upstream. And don't expect updates: the pack's author is upfront that this is a "someday I'll add more" single-node project. For a timestamp, that's exactly enough.