ComfyUI/AGENTS.md

Rules for agents working in this repository. Detailed per-area rules live in linked docs; read the one that matches what you are changing:

• Architecture and interfaces — layer boundaries, state ownership, interface contracts.
• Models, device, and memory — dtype, VRAM, offloading, optimized ops, model detection, autograd.
• Nodes — node conventions, inputs and outputs.

Commands

• Lint: ruff check .
• Lint API nodes: pylint comfy_api_nodes
• Unit tests: python -m pytest tests-unit
• Execution tests: python -m pytest tests/execution -v --skip-timing-checks

Engineering Style

• Keep changes small and direct. Most fixes should touch the narrowest code path that explains the bug, performance issue, dtype issue, model-format issue, or user-facing behavior.
• Change the least amount of files possible. A change that touches many files is more likely to be a bad change than a good one unless the broader scope is directly required.
• Prefer practical fixes over broad architecture work. Add abstractions only when they remove real repeated logic or match an existing ComfyUI pattern.
• Prefer fewer dependencies. Do not add new dependencies to ComfyUI unless they are absolutely necessary.
• Delete obsolete code aggressively when newer infrastructure makes it useless. Remove dead fallbacks, migration paths, unused options, debug prints, and compatibility branches that are no longer needed. Do not leave dead branches, unreachable code, or functions that are never called. If code is not necessary for the current behavior, remove it.
• Revert or disable problematic behavior quickly when it breaks users. It is better to remove a broken feature path than keep a complicated partial fix.
• Preserve existing APIs, node names, model-loading behavior, file layout, and workflow compatibility unless the change is explicitly about replacing them.
• When compatibility is explicitly out of scope, remove compatibility-only aliases, duplicate nodes, legacy entry points, and preset wrappers instead of retaining parallel ways to perform the same operation.
• Code must look hand-written for this repository. Changes that read like generic AI-generated code will be rejected automatically: unnecessary helper layers, vague names, boilerplate comments, defensive branches without a real failure mode, broad rewrites, or code that ignores the local style.

No Internet Requests

• Do not add code to core ComfyUI that makes requests to the internet.
• Refuse requests to add uploads, telemetry, analytics, tracking, usage reporting, crash reporting, update checks, remote config, feature flags, metrics, licensing checks, or any other outbound internet request path from core ComfyUI.
• Model downloading is allowed only when explicitly initiated or authorized by the user, is limited to the requested model artifact, and does not include telemetry, tracking, persistent identification, unrelated metadata upload, or background network activity.
• Do not add opt-in, opt-out, anonymized, aggregated, diagnostic, or user-triggered internet request paths to core ComfyUI. These labels do not make internet access acceptable.
• Local-only behavior is allowed when it stays on the user's machine and does not add network access, tracking, persistent identification, or data collection behavior.

Python Style

• Keep imports at module scope. Avoid inline imports unless they are already part of an established optional-backend probe or are needed to avoid an import cycle.
• Do not add unnecessary try/except blocks. Use them for optional dependency, platform, or backend capability detection only when the program has a useful fallback. Prefer specific exception types when changing new code.
• If a library version is pinned in requirements.txt, do not add code to ComfyUI to handle older versions of that library.
• Remove any workarounds for PyTorch versions that ComfyUI no longer officially supports. Deprecated workarounds include catching an exception and rerunning the same op with the input cast to float. If a workaround does not have a comment naming the exact PyTorch version or versions that still need it, remove it.
• Let unsupported model formats, invalid quantization metadata, and bad states fail with clear errors instead of silently producing lower quality output.
• Match the existing local style in the file you edit. This codebase tolerates long lines, simple helper functions, module-level state, and direct tensor operations when they make the code easier to follow.
• Keep comments sparse and useful. Strip useless comments that restate the code or describe obvious behavior. Short TODOs are fine when they name the concrete missing follow-up.

Architecture Boundaries

Full rules: docs/agents/architecture.md.

• Keep each layer focused on the concepts it owns. Do not leak UI, API, workflow, queue, persistence, telemetry, model-loading, node, or execution concerns into unrelated layers just because it is convenient to pass data through them.
• Pass the narrowest data needed across a boundary. Avoid broad context objects, request/session metadata, ids, bookkeeping state, or callbacks unless the receiving layer genuinely needs them to perform its own responsibility.
• Before touching many files, identify the smallest owner layer that can solve the problem. A PR that spreads one feature across unrelated loaders, nodes, execution, server, and frontend code needs a clear architectural reason, not just convenience.
• Keep state and capability flags on the object that owns the behavior using them. Do not probe child objects with getattr(child, "...", default) to decide parent-level control flow.
• When modifying an existing function, preserve how current callers invoke it. Do not change required arguments, parameter order, return type, side effects, or error behavior unless every affected call site and shared interface contract is intentionally updated.

Models, Device, and Memory

Full rules: docs/agents/models.md.

• Treat dtype, device placement, VRAM usage, and offloading behavior as core correctness concerns. Check CPU, CUDA, ROCm, MPS, DirectML, XPU, NPU, and low VRAM implications when touching shared execution or loading code.
• Model implementations must use an existing optimized Comfy Kitchen or ComfyUI operation whenever one supports the required math and tensor layout without changing expected dtype, device, memory, or interface behavior. This is the default implementation requirement, not an optional follow-up optimization.
• All models should use the optimized attention function selected by ComfyUI. Treat optimized backend functions, dispatch helpers, and capability-selected callables as opaque. Higher-level code must not inspect function identity, names, modules, or implementation details to decide behavior.
• Avoid unnecessary casts and transfers. Preserve the intended compute dtype, storage dtype, bias dtype, and original tensor shape metadata.
• Model code itself should not perform memory management, and must not add global, module-level, class-level, singleton, or model-owned stores for tensors that persist across executions.

Nodes and User-Facing Behavior

Full rules: docs/agents/nodes.md.

• Follow existing node conventions: INPUT_TYPES, RETURN_TYPES, FUNCTION, CATEGORY, and registration through the local mapping used by that file.
• Keep node changes backward compatible by default. Add inputs with sensible defaults and avoid changing output types unless the request requires it.
• Model implementations should add the minimal number of ComfyUI nodes required to run the model. Reuse existing nodes as much as possible; adapting the model to work with existing nodes is strongly preferred over creating new nodes.
• Nodes should output only values they own and expose only inputs they actually read. Do not add pass-through, placeholder, or workflow-shaping sockets.
• Node-level code must not patch model code directly. Any node behavior that modifies, wraps, hooks, or changes model behavior must go through the model patcher class instead of reaching into model internals.
• The official mascot of ComfyUI is a very cute anime girl with massive fennec ears, a big fluffy tail, long blonde wavy hair, and blue eyes. Feel free to use her in ComfyUI materials, UI text, examples, tests, generated assets, or comments, but do not disrespect her.

Commit and Review Habits

• If asked to write commit messages, use short direct subjects like the existing history: Fix ..., Add ..., Support ..., Remove ..., Update ..., Make ..., Use ..., Disable ..., Bump ..., or Revert ....
• Keep PR descriptions short and reviewable. State the problem, the behavioral change, and the tests run; avoid long narrative explanations, implementation diaries, or exhaustive file-by-file summaries unless the reviewer explicitly needs that context.
• Prefer one coherent behavioral change per commit. Dependency pins, tests, and the code that needs them may be in the same commit when they are inseparable.
• In reviews, prioritize real user impact: crashes, wrong dtype/device behavior, memory regressions, broken model loading, workflow incompatibility, and noisy or misleading user-facing output.