Pip/UV Outdated Packages (Lackluster)

A surprising amount of "ComfyUI used to work and now it doesn't" is a dependency that quietly updated out from under you. Pip/UV Outdated Packages is a tiny node that runs pip list --outdated (or the uv version) and shows you the result - so you can see at a glance which packages in your environment have newer versions, and decide whether an upgrade is a fix or a risk.

How it works

Two booleans control it:

• check - set to True to actually run the check (False returns a "disabled" message, which is handy for bypassing a node without removing it)
• use_uv - True runs uv pip list --outdated, False runs pip list --outdated

It shells out to the command, captures stdout, and returns it as the outdated_packages STRING. If uv isn't installed, you get a clear error telling you so; if the command fails, you get stderr back instead of a silent nothing.

Two behaviors worth knowing:

• It always re-runs. The node opts out of ComfyUI's cache (IS_CHANGED returns NaN), so every execution actually hits the shell and reflects reality. That's correct for a status check - you don't want a cached "everything's fine."
• The output is a raw package list, not a summary. Wire it into a Show Text node to actually read it.

The workflow rhythm

This is a maintenance tool, not a per-render node. The useful pattern: keep it in a spare graph or a corner of your main one, and run it when something breaks or before you upgrade a model stack. "Is torchvision newer than the version my custom node expects?" is exactly the question this answers in one run instead of five forum posts.

Notes and gotchas

• The check runs against the entire Python environment, not just ComfyUI's folder. That's a feature (it catches conflicting deps) and a caveat (expect a long list if your env is shared).
• uv must be on your PATH for use_uv to work. If you don't use uv, flip it off - plain pip is the safe default.
• A long outdated list is not an instruction to upgrade everything. Upgrading a pinned dependency is the classic way to break a working workflow; use this as a diagnostic, not a to-do list.

Same light install as the whole pack: ComfyUI Manager → "ComfyUI Lackluster Nodes" (deps requests + numpy).