EZ Checkpoint

EZ Checkpoint is the entry door of every Prompt Helpers workflow: it loads the model and hands out the MODEL, CLIP, and VAE that everything else consumes. If EZ Generate is the engine, this is the key in the ignition.

Its two inputs are the whole story:

• checkpoint (combo) - the checkpoint filename, pulled from ComfyUI/models/checkpoints. It's a dropdown, so there's nothing to mistype unless the file isn't in the right folder (in which case it won't be in the dropdown either).
• clip_skip (INT, default 2, range 0–24) - which CLIP layer the text encoder stops at. Negative skip values below the last layer are the common trick for anime-style SDXL finetunes: Illustrious and NoobAI are trained to be prompted at clip skip 2, which is why this node defaults there.

Outputs are MODEL, CLIP, and VAE - the standard triple, wired into EZ Generate.

How it works

Under the hood it's two stock nodes chained: CheckpointLoaderSimple, then - when clip_skip is above 0 - a CLIPSetLastLayer with stop_at_clip_layer set to the negative of your value (clip skip 2 becomes -2). If you set clip_skip to 0, the loader output passes through untouched, no clip surgery at all.

One thing worth calling out: the node's description says it "loads a checkpoint, sets clip skip, and applies Loras from the JSON." The last part is aspirational. This node itself only loads and sets clip skip - LoRAs from your JSON get applied later, inside EZ Generate, by the pack's hidden Apply Loras node. Don't go hunting for a LoRA socket on EZ Checkpoint; there isn't one.

The clip skip question

Since the pack is built around CLIP-era prompt mechanics (weights, BREAK, negative prompts), EZ Checkpoint is really aimed at SDXL-lineage checkpoints. If your checkpoint is an anime finetune, clip skip 2 is the correct default and you can forget the knob exists. If you're on something like a base SDXL or a photoreal model that doesn't want skip, set it to 0. There's no universal answer - it's a property of the model you loaded, not a taste slider.

Installing it

It ships with the Prompt Helpers pack. In ComfyUI Manager search "Prompt Helpers" (Pauan/comfyui-prompt-helpers), install, restart. Manual:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/Pauan/comfyui-prompt-helpers

Restart ComfyUI. No model downloads - this node loads whatever checkpoints you already have - and the pack's only dependencies are PyYAML and desktop-notifier. It needs ComfyUI 0.8.0+ because the pack is built on the Nodes 2.0 API.

The one real failure mode is an empty checkpoint dropdown, and it's never this node's fault: your checkpoint files live outside models/checkpoints, or ComfyUI hasn't been restarted since you added them. Drop the file in the right folder, restart, and the combo repopulates.