VRGDG Flow Browser Setup

If VRGDG Flow Browser Image Edit and VRGDG ChatGPT Images Browser mysteriously do nothing the first time you run them, this is the node you forgot. VRGDG Flow Browser Setup isn't a generator or a tool - it's the plumber. It checks for, and optionally installs, the runtime those browser-automation nodes need: a Node.js install plus the Playwright dependency, tucked into the flow_automation folder of the pack. Run it once, let it finish, and the browser nodes have what they need.

The clever bit: on Windows it downloads a portable Node.js into the pack's own folder, so you never need to install Node globally or open a command prompt. On Linux and macOS it uses the system Node/npm if present. Then it runs npm install for you.

What you actually set

• install_portable_node - on by default. Downloads a private portable Node.js into the custom node folder. Turn it off if you already have a system Node 18+ you trust.
• node_version - which Node to download. Default v20.15.1. Leave it alone unless you specifically need a different Node 18+ version.
• install_if_missing - whether to run the npm install of the JavaScript dependencies. Keep it on; this is the actual Playwright install.
• strict_ssl - npm certificate checking. False is the forgiving default, which matters on machines with certificate issues (corporate proxies, old Windows). If an install fails on a TLS error, this is the first thing to flip.
• timeout_seconds - max time for the downloads and installs. Default 600; raise it on slow connections.

The single output, status, is a human-readable summary of what was found or installed - useful for confirming it actually did its job.

Installing it

The node itself comes from the pack, so that's the same install as everything else in VRGameDevGirl's collection - Manager, search vrgamedev, or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/vrgamegirl19/comfyui-vrgamedevgirl.git

Restart ComfyUI and hard-refresh, then add this node and run it once. Note the pack's Python requirements.txt is heavy (transformers, opencv, voxcpm, llama-cpp-python) - on Windows portable, work through the README's pip tooling commands first, and prefer Python 3.12.

Common issues

• "npm was not found." On Windows, that means portable Node isn't in place - enable install_portable_node and run again. On Linux/macOS it means you need Node.js installed (or on PATH) before starting ComfyUI.
• Install fails with a certificate/TLS error. Set strict_ssl to false and rerun. The README also documents the manual fallback: npm install --strict-ssl=false in the flow_automation folder.
• Browser nodes still broken after setup. Setup only installs the runtime - Chrome itself is a separate requirement, and each provider (Flow, ChatGPT, Meta AI) needs a one-time login in its own browser profile. The .bat launchers in flow_automation/ open those profiles for you, but they're Windows-only.

One thing to know: this is a one-and-done node. After it succeeds, you can leave it out of your main workflow entirely - it's a setup step, not a graph component.