👾 Show Value

Every ComfyUI user has had the moment: a node is misbehaving, you're sure the value going into it is 0.5, and you have no way to check without adding three more nodes. 👾 Show Value fixes that. It accepts any input type and displays the value right in the node - float, int, string, bool, whatever you feed it. It's a debugging node, and it's the sort of thing you forget exists until the first time it saves you twenty minutes.

How it works

One required input, source, and it's typed as * - wildcard. That's the key detail: ComfyUI lets this node accept any data type on the wire, and the pack's JS renders whatever arrives into the node body. Because it uses INPUT_IS_LIST, it also handles list inputs gracefully, showing the values without choking. There are no outputs - this is a terminal inspection node, which means it shows up in the graph as a leaf you can hang off anything, and it's marked as an output node so ComfyUI renders it visibly.

The mechanism is deliberately minimal: read the value, render it. No conversion, no cleverness. That simplicity is the feature - you get the actual value at that point in the graph, in the type it actually is.

When you'd use it

Three spots it earns its keep:

• Catching type confusion. A node quietly outputs an int where you assumed a float, or a string that parses like a number. Show Value shows you the truth at the source instead of debugging the failure downstream.
• Confirming slider/math chains. After a Mega Slider or a math node, check the number before it hits the sampler - especially if step-snapping or clamping might have altered it (the Mega Slider gotcha).
• Debugging seeds and batch values. Hang it off a seed output to verify your lock is actually locking, or off a per-item value in a loop to see what changed between iterations.

It pairs naturally with the pack's Show Text (string-focused with a passthrough) - Show Value is the any-type cousin.

Installing it

Ships in the MachinePainting Nodes pack. ComfyUI Manager → search "MachinePaintingNodes", or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/machinepainting/ComfyUI-MachinePaintingNodes.git

Restart ComfyUI. Pack deps (opencv-python-headless, numpy<3, rembg) don't matter here - it renders, it doesn't compute.

Gotchas

• No outputs means it's a dead end. If you need the value and to keep the pipeline going, you need a passthrough node - Show Value is for inspection, not routing.
• It shows the value at execution time. If a node upstream re-randomizes per run, the displayed value updates each run - that's correct, but it means "the value I saw" and "the value next run" can differ.
• Very large lists display, but don't expect pretty formatting - it's a debug readout, not a table.

It's a tiny node with zero glamour and real utility. When your workflow misbehaves and you're guessing at values, this is the first node you should drop into the graph.