🔀 Lazy API Switch (Bypass)

Everything else in the ComfyUI-API-Optimizer pack saves you money indirectly. This is the node that actually stops the bleeding. On a cache hit it physically prevents your upstream API node from executing - not "fast-forwards past it," not "reuses a copy" - the API node never runs, so you're never charged and you never wait on its latency. That's the whole point of the Hash Vault suite, and this is the switch that makes it pay off.

The lazy trick

ComfyUI normally evaluates a node as soon as its inputs are ready. This node opts out. Its two data sockets are declared with {"lazy": True}, and it implements check_lazy_status, a hook that tells ComfyUI which inputs to actually bother evaluating. On a cache hit it demands only cached_data; on a miss it demands only api_data. ComfyUI respects that, so the branch you didn't demand simply never executes.

That's why the wiring makes or breaks the pack. Your API node sits upstream of the api_data socket. When the switch doesn't demand it, the entire branch stays idle - the API node doesn't run, the Save node doesn't run, nothing upstream of that socket moves. The result you already paid for comes back from disk instead.

Inputs and outputs

• is_cached (required, INT) - the verdict from Hash Vault (Check Cache). 1 routes the cached copy, 0 routes the fresh API result.
• cached_data - the stored result, wired from Check Cache's cached_data output.
• api_data - the live result, wired from your API node's output.
• final_output (output) - whichever branch won, continuing downstream to your Save Image / Preview / next step.

The sandwich, one more time

1. Fan your prompt/image to both Check Cache and the API node.
2. Check Cache's is_cached → the switch's is_cached.
3. API node's output → Hash Vault (Save Result), with the hash_key from Check Cache.
4. Both Check Cache's cached_data and Save Result's api_output → the switch's two data sockets.
5. final_output → wherever you were going.

First run: miss, the switch demands api_data, the API executes, Save Result banks it. Second run: hit, cached_data is routed, and the API branch never wakes up. Two runs, one API charge.

Gotchas

Don't reroute the save around the switch. Hash Vault (Save Result) deliberately is not an output node, so it only runs when the switch demands its branch. If you connect the API output straight to a preview node, the whole lazy mechanism is moot - ComfyUI will run the API node every time because something downstream actually needs it. The switch has to sit in the path.

Cache hit but the API still runs? Then is_cached wasn't 1. A changed input means a miss by design - that's the hash being strict, not the switch being broken. Also make sure cached_data is really wired: the switch is defensive about a hit with no cached data, but you don't want to rely on that path.

Install

Part of the ComfyUI-API-Optimizer pack. ComfyUI Manager: search "ComfyUI API Optimizer". Or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes/
git clone https://github.com/jeremieLouvaert/ComfyUI-API-Optimizer.git
pip install -r ComfyUI-API-Optimizer/requirements.txt

Restart ComfyUI. Just filelock on top of your existing PyTorch - nothing else, no models.