Add docs for registry-install and --fast-deps

[Jinnai]

Describe the solution you'd like

1. The commands provided in the ComfyUI Registry use comfy node registry-install. This command is not documented and it's not clear to me how this command is different from comfy node install.

2. The example in the Readme: comfy node install ComfyUI-Impact-Pack doesn't work:

ERROR: An error occurred while installing 'ComfyUI-Impact-Pack'.
Node 'ComfyUI-Impact-Pack@unknown' not found in

3. There is no documentation for --fast-deps. And it's not clear to me why registry-install doesn't work with --fast-deps.

[polarathene]

This is just from my own observations / experience thus far, but it's probably accurate 😅

TL;DR

You may have the best experience with comfy node registry-install, provided the dep you need is available at the Comfy Registry.

Otherwise ComfyUI-Manager integration into comfy-cli seems to be lagging behind and you may want to directly interact with it via cm-cli.py instead.

Here's how the two similar commands seem to differ:

comfy node install:

• Installs nodes through via ComfyUI-Manager
• Can be given multiple nodes to install in a single command call.
• Supports different channels / sources beyond the official Comfy Registry to download nodes from. This was often via Github repos for example, prior to Comfy Registry existing.
• Supports --fast-deps (compiles dependencies for potential performance improvement, but slower install time, may fail if compile is unsuccessful). Without this option, pre-compiled deps will be for a broader audience, additional performance from compiling will vary by dep (and compiler + options used).

comfy node registry-install:

• Installs a node directly from Comfy Registry. Should be compatible with --skip-manager (no ComfyUI-Manager dependency to use)
• One node install per command.
• Only uses the official Comfy Registry to download nodes from.
• No --fast-deps support.

NOTE: registry-install command is proposed for removal at #139

---

Original Response

--fast-deps

3. There is no documentation for --fast-deps

It seems to be for compiling dependencies instead of trying to use pre-compiled generic binaries/libs, so the "fast" is in reference to potential optimizations for faster performance, not faster installs (quite the opposite).

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/command/install.py

Lines 220 to 221 in 67f880d

	if not fast_deps:
	pip_install_comfyui_dependencies(repo_dir, gpu, plat, cuda_version, skip_torch_or_directml, skip_requirement)

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/command/install.py

Lines 256 to 262 in 67f880d

	if not fast_deps:
	pip_install_manager_dependencies(repo_dir)
	if fast_deps:
	depComp = DependencyCompiler(cwd=repo_dir, gpu=gpu)
	depComp.compile_deps()
	depComp.install_deps()

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/uv.py

Lines 479 to 491 in 67f880d

	def compile_deps(self):
	self.make_override()
	self.compile_core_plus_ext()
	self.handle_opencv()
	def install_deps(self):
	DependencyCompiler.Install(
	cwd=self.cwd,
	executable=self.executable,
	extra_index_url=self.gpuUrl,
	override=self.override,
	reqFile=[self.out],
	)

So without --fast-deps it will install the deps via pip... technically uv is run with it's pip compatibility layer (executable is the active Python interpreter running the current Python code):

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/uv.py

Lines 122 to 128 in 67f880d

	cmd = [
	str(executable),
	"-m",
	"uv",
	"pip",
	"compile",
	]

---

--fast-deps with cm-cli.py (ComfyUI-Manager CLI)

For subcommands that delegate to cm-cli.py, --fast-deps instead adds --no-deps flag to that external tool:

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/command/custom_nodes/cm_cli_util.py

Lines 46 to 47 in 67f880d

	if fast_deps:
	cmd += ["--no-deps"]

But if you ran install / reinstall with --fast-deps then this can invalidate and trigger a compile of deps again:

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/command/custom_nodes/cm_cli_util.py

Lines 63 to 67 in 67f880d

	if fast_deps and args[0] in _dependency_cmds:
	# we're using the fast_deps behavior and just ran a command that invalidated the dependencies
	depComp = DependencyCompiler(cwd=workspace_path)
	depComp.compile_deps()
	depComp.install_deps()

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/command/custom_nodes/cm_cli_util.py

Lines 17 to 21 in 67f880d

	# set of commands that invalidate (ie require an update of) dependencies after they are run
	_dependency_cmds = {
	"install",
	"reinstall",
	}

---

comfy node install vs comfy node registry-install

1. The commands provided in the ComfyUI Registry use comfy node registry-install. This command is not documented and it's not clear to me how this command is different from comfy node install.

Here is the source for the two commands, they have some documentation as you can see, some of it would appear in CLI help output or is output during the command depending on what happens.

install is delegated to ComfyUI-Manager / cm-cli.py, while registry-install seems to not rely on that and instead installs from the Comfy Registry.

I am not yet that familiar with either of those approaches myself yet, I know that the Comfy Registry is newer / official, so ComfyUI-Manager may have wider feature support or can install from other sources beyond the Comfy Registry.

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/command/custom_nodes/command.py

Lines 383 to 416 in 67f880d

	# install, reinstall, uninstall
	@app.command(help="Install custom nodes")
	@tracking.track_command("node")
	def install(
	nodes: List[str] = typer.Argument(..., help="List of custom nodes to install", autocompletion=node_completer),
	channel: Annotated[
	Optional[str],
	typer.Option(
	show_default=False,
	help="Specify the operation mode",
	autocompletion=channel_completer,
	),
	] = None,
	fast_deps: Annotated[
	bool,
	typer.Option(
	"--fast-deps",
	show_default=False,
	help="Use new fast dependency installer",
	),
	] = False,
	mode: str = typer.Option(
	None,
	help="[remote|local|cache]",
	autocompletion=mode_completer,
	),
	):
	if "all" in nodes:
	typer.echo(f"Invalid command: {mode}. `install all` is not allowed", err=True)
	raise typer.Exit(code=1)
	validate_mode(mode)
	execute_cm_cli(["install"] + nodes, channel=channel, fast_deps=fast_deps, mode=mode)

comfy-cli/comfy_cli/command/custom_nodes/command.py

Lines 832 to 905 in 67f880d

	@app.command(
	"registry-install",
	help="Install a node from the registry",
	hidden=True,
	)
	@tracking.track_command("node")
	def registry_install(
	node_id: str,
	version: Optional[str] = None,
	force_download: Annotated[
	bool,
	typer.Option(
	"--force-download",
	help="Force download the node even if it is already installed",
	),
	] = False,
	):
	"""
	Install a node from the registry.
	Args:
	node_id: The ID of the node to install.
	version: The version of the node to install. If not provided, the latest version will be installed.
	"""
	# If the node ID is not provided, prompt the user to enter it
	if not node_id:
	node_id = typer.prompt("Enter the ID of the node you want to install")
	node_version = None
	try:
	# Call the API to install the node
	node_version = registry_api.install_node(node_id, version)
	if not node_version.download_url:
	logging.error("Download URL not provided from the registry.")
	ui.display_error_message(f"Failed to download the custom node {node_id}.")
	return
	except Exception as e:
	logging.error(f"Encountered an error while installing the node. error: {str(e)}")
	ui.display_error_message(f"Failed to download the custom node {node_id}.")
	return
	# Download the node archive
	custom_nodes_path = pathlib.Path(workspace_manager.workspace_path) / "custom_nodes"
	node_specific_path = custom_nodes_path / node_id # Subdirectory for the node
	if node_specific_path.exists():
	print(
	f"[bold red] The node {node_id} already exists in the workspace. This migit delete any model files in the node.[/bold red]"
	)
	confirm = ui.prompt_confirm_action(
	"Do you want to overwrite it?",
	force_download,
	)
	if not confirm:
	return
	node_specific_path.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True) # Create the directory if it doesn't exist
	local_filename = node_specific_path / f"{node_id}-{node_version.version}.zip"
	logging.debug(f"Start downloading the node {node_id} version {node_version.version} to {local_filename}")
	download_file(node_version.download_url, local_filename)
	# Extract the downloaded archive to the custom_node directory on the workspace.
	logging.debug(f"Start extracting the node {node_id} version {node_version.version} to {custom_nodes_path}")
	extract_package_as_zip(local_filename, node_specific_path)
	# TODO: temoporary solution to run requirement.txt and install script
	execute_install_script(node_specific_path)
	# Delete the downloaded archive
	logging.debug(f"Deleting the downloaded archive {local_filename}")
	os.remove(local_filename)
	logging.info(f"Node {node_id} version {node_version.version} has been successfully installed.")

3. it's not clear to me why registry-install doesn't work with --fast-deps.

As shown in the above source references for these two commands, registry-install does not have a --fast-deps option, but install does.

---

Install failure with comfy node install

It seems that comfy-cli support for ComfyUI-Manager functionality may be potentially broken? (or outdated if it instead pins to an older release of cm-cli.py, I've not yet investigated)

2. The example in the Readme: comfy node install ComfyUI-Impact-Pack doesn't work:

ERROR: An error occurred while installing 'ComfyUI-Impact-Pack'.
Node 'ComfyUI-Impact-Pack@unknown' not found in

README reference for context.

This specific node is available at the Comfy Registry: https://registry.comfy.org/nodes/comfyui-impact-pack

That page link provides the install command with comfy-cli:

comfy node registry-install comfyui-impact-pack

So for comfy node registry-install ... the NodeID it refers to as an input is comfyui-impact-pack which is part of the URL at the registry as well. You can optionally install a specific version.

For comfy node install ..., that would be delegating to the equivalent cm-cli.py command (third-party, optional ComfyUI-Manager), which has the example:

python cm-cli.py install ComfyUI-Impact-Pack ComfyUI-Inspire-Pack ComfyUI_experiments

For comfy-cli, that should map to:

comfy node install ComfyUI-Impact-Pack ComfyUI-Inspire-Pack ComfyUI_experiments

I've not yet tried running any of these, but presumably your failure would not occur if you used cm-cli.py directly.

There are open PRs for comfy-cli to improve CComfyUI-Manager support, so it's possible something is out of sync and broken at comfy-cli side?

• feat: support pip version ComfyUI-Manager #261 (comment)
• fix: unable get ComfyUI-Manager path when its folder name is lowercase in case-sensitive file system #244
• change ComfyUI-Manager path from ComfyUI-Manager to comfyui-manager #233
• [DRAFT] Support new ComfyUI-Manager #139

Notably PR #139 fixes comfy node install to be compatible with ComfyUI-Manager 3.0+ and removes the comfy node registry-install method.