Light-Tool: Show Text

Half the time you build a ComfyUI workflow, you're not debugging pixels - you're debugging text. Is the prompt assembling the way you think? Did that replace node actually fire? This node is the answer: it renders whatever string you feed it right onto the node itself in a readable, read-only widget, and it also passes the text through as an output. It's the pack's version of the classic "show text" debug node that every serious pack ships, and it's exactly as boring and indispensable as that sounds.

How it works

Wire any text in and run the workflow - the node's JS extension replaces its widgets with read-only multiline boxes showing your string (or multiple strings, one per line of the batch). The node is flagged as an output node (OUTPUT_NODE), so its value shows up in the node's results panel too. The output text is typed as a STRING list, so it's not just a viewer: you can hang the same value off to other nodes while you read it on the graph. It takes a wildcard * input, so a wide range of string-ish things will wire into it without type squabbling.

One behavior to note: the node treats its input as a list (INPUT_IS_LIST). In practice that means it's happiest when fed by a node that outputs text cleanly - Input Text, Text Connect, Text Replace, or the pack's own Show Anything. A bare numeric value may not display as a number (that's Show Anything's territory anyway, and even it has limits - see its article).

Where it fits

Debugging, plainly. Put it at the end of a text chain when a prompt isn't coming out right, to see the final assembled string. Use it mid-graph to verify a transform actually ran. Drop it on an output you're about to embed as metadata (the pack's Save Metadata is a natural neighbor) to sanity-check the value first. There's a reason "show text" nodes exist in essentially every pack: reading values inline beats guessing at wire types.

Installing it

Part of ComfyUI-Light-Tool by Hmily. ComfyUI Manager → search "ComfyUI-Light-Tool" → Install → restart, or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/ihmily/ComfyUI-Light-Tool
pip install -r requirements.txt
# restart ComfyUI

Pure Python plus a small JS widget, no models, offline.

Where people get burned

• Nothing displays after the run. The widget only populates on execution - if the node's upstream didn't run, there's nothing to show. Re-run the workflow.
• Expecting numbers to show. It's a text viewer. Feed it a number and the pass-through still works, but the display can come up empty - convert to a string first, or use Show Anything for arbitrary types.
• It's read-only. You can't edit the text in the widget. If you want to hand-edit, use an Input Text node.

Cheap, local, and honest about what it shows. Every serious workflow has one of these parked somewhere.