VAE selector

If you have one VAE, you don't need this node. If you have a folder of them - the classic set of "VAE that fixes washed-out faces" candidates, the fp16-vs-fp32 variants, the SDXL vae baked into some checkpoints - then VAESelector is the nicer way to pick, because it remembers what you actually used and can rotate through the pile automatically.

Same shape as the other LF selectors, which is the point of the pack: a dropdown over everything in your vae folder, plus a history widget that records each pick with a timestamp so your recent favorites are one click away instead of a scroll through an alphabetized list.

The inputs that matter:

• vae - the dropdown; your pick. Defaults to None until you choose one.
• enable_history (default true) - saves every VAE you use, clickable for quick swaps.
• randomize (default false) - picks a VAE at random per run.
• filter - when randomizing, restrict the pool with wildcards (e.g. *fp16* or *sdxl*).
• seed - controls the random pick for reproducibility.

Outputs are combo (the VAE-typed enum, for nodes that want the exact type) and string (the model name) - wire the string into a VAELoader and you're set.

Where this earns its keep is the randomize mode, which is genuinely useful for one specific workflow: the VAE bake-off. Get a batch of images looking washed out or oversaturated, and instead of swapping VAEs by hand, randomize across your candidates, render a grid, and let the history widget tell you which model produced which result. The troubleshooting knowledge is worth repeating here: a lot of "bad colors" issues trace back to the VAE - mismatched or missing VAE encode/decode is a classic cause of the grey-box and washed-out problems people chase for hours. So having a fast way to A/B your VAEs is less of a luxury than it sounds.

Installing LF Nodes - same pack, same steps:

• ComfyUI Manager → search "LF Nodes" → install → restart, or
• cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes && git clone https://github.com/lucafoscili/comfyui-lf then restart.

Same caveats as its siblings: the repo is in legacy mode (frozen, migrated to lucafoscili/lf-nodes) and the node carries over unchanged; it downloads no models. The VAE list is snapshotted when the pack loads, so newly dropped VAEs need a restart to appear. And if randomization throws "Not found a model with the specified filter," the wildcard matched nothing - narrow or drop the filter. One last thing: None is a valid selection, and it's the default - if you're loading workflows that complain about a missing VAE, this is the node where someone left it on None.