KIE • Connection Status

Every other node in this pack needs a key and a network. This one needs nothing and tells you whether you have both. It's the least glamorous node in the collection and the one you'll be glad exists at 1am when a Claude node is throwing a vague error and you can't remember whether you ever pasted the key into this install.

What it does

No inputs. Three outputs:

• configured - a boolean. Is a key resolvable at all?
• source - a string: environment, saved, or none. This is the one that solves the actual argument. "I definitely saved it" versus "KIE_API_KEY is set in your shell" is a real distinction, and it's the difference between fixing the Settings row and fixing your launch script.
• status_json - a JSON blob with the diagnostic detail: a masked_key fingerprint like ••••••••••••A1B2, validation_state, validation_message, validated_at, last_credits (the most recent balance the pack saw), and settings_path - the literal file on disk where the key lives.

That last field earns the node its place. When a key "isn't being picked up", the question is always which file and which environment the ComfyUI process actually sees, and this hands you the path without a grep.

Why the plumbing looks like this

The pack's design goal is that you never paste a key into a node. You paste it once in Settings → KIE.ai Nodes Next → Connection, the frontend sends it to the backend, the backend validates it against KIE before replacing anything, and then the frontend only ever holds a masked fingerprint. The full key is backend-only, lives in the user config area with restrictive permissions where the OS supports it, and never lands in a workflow. KIE_API_KEY still works for servers and headless installs, and it takes priority over the saved key.

That's a meaningfully more careful pattern than the genre norm. The KB's external-api-nodes.md frames the whole category as one where a node that holds a credential and calls the network by design is exactly the shape of thing that's already been weaponized once in this ecosystem - so a pack that refuses to put the key in graph JSON is doing the right thing, even if it means you can't see the key in the UI.

How you use it

Wire nothing. Add it, queue the prompt, read the outputs in the node's output panel or open status_json. It makes no generation call and spends no credits.

The healthy result: configured = true, source = saved (or environment on a server), validation_state not not_configured, and a last_credits number from whenever the balance was last checked.

The useful failure shapes:

• configured = false, source = none - you never saved a key on this install. Paste it in Settings.
• configured = true, source = environment - you're running with KIE_API_KEY set. If a different key was intended, this is your answer, and no amount of re-saving in Settings will override the env var.
• configured = true but calls still fail - the key resolves, so the problem is downstream: credits, a model pulled from KIE's catalog, or a task failure. Check KIE • Credits next.

This also isn't a live handshake - it reports what the pack knows locally, including the last time it verified the key. A key can be valid on disk and invalid at KIE if the account changed.

Install

ComfyUI Manager → ComfyUI-KIE-Nodes-Next. Registry publication is prepared but not shipped as far as the README goes:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/felipederosilva/ComfyUI-KIE-Nodes-Next
cd ComfyUI-KIE-Nodes-Next
pip install -r requirements.txt

Restart. The node is registered from the pack's base mappings, so it exists immediately - it doesn't wait for the live catalog sync that builds the hundreds of model nodes. Python 3.10+, requests/Pillow/numpy/PyYAML, nothing to download.

Common issues

source says environment and you "definitely saved a key". The env var wins. Unset KIE_API_KEY or embrace it as the real configuration.

You can't find the settings file. Read settings_path out of status_json. On a manual install it lands under ComfyUI's user directory; KIE_NODES_NEXT_CONFIG_DIR overrides the location entirely, so check that too if it points somewhere strange.

Key resolves, everything still fails. Not this node's problem anymore. Credits, catalog, or a specific model's endpoint. The pack's "test saved key" toggle in Settings does a live check if you want more than local state.

Two ComfyUI instances, one looks broken. Different user dirs mean different settings files mean two different keys-or-none. This node is how you tell them apart in seconds.