I use many wildcards, but I often felt like I was seeing the same results too often. So, I 'VibeCoded' this node with a memory feature to avoid the last (x) used wildcard words.

I'm just sharing it with the community – if you need help, I'll try my best, or you can always ask Gemini or ChatGPT.

Have fun!

Update Notes: v1.1

New Features & Improvements:

• Recursive Search: Wildcards are now found automatically in subfolders (e.g., __hero__ finds /wildcards/rpg/hero.txt).

• Integrated Styles: New dropdown menu to quickly apply aesthetic styles (e.g., Psychedelic, Surreal, Cyberpunk) as a prefix.

• Smart Empty-Check: The node will not process or add styles if the text input is empty, preventing accidental resource waste.

• Enhanced Debugging: Console now logs the selected item, total pool size, and remaining items in the current history cycle.

• Stability: Improved regex parsing and bracket {a|b} resolution to prevent crashes from malformed syntax.

Smart Wildcard Loader: Quick Start

Update Notes: Smart Wildcard Loader (v1.03)

Improved Parsing & Debugging

• Robust Wildcard Handling: The parser now intelligently ignores incomplete or unclosed markers (e.g., __unfinished_tag), preventing prompt corruption.

• Enhanced Debugging: Added console warnings for invalid markers and missing wildcard files when debug is enabled.

New Features (v1.02)

• Auto-Pool Mode: Set history_depth to 0 to automatically detect file length. It will exhaust every single line before any word repeats.

• Reset Button: Use the reset_history toggle to instantly wipe the memory and all frequency stats.

• Frequency Tracking: If history_depth > 0, the console highlights repeated picks in RED and tells you exactly how often they have appeared.

• Skip Counter: Tracks the node's "workload" by counting how many lines were skipped to respect your history settings.

1. Setup

• File: Save SmartWildcard.py in ComfyUI/custom_nodes/.

• Folder: Create a wildcards folder in your main ComfyUI/ directory.

• Content: Put your .txt files (one option per line) inside that folder.

2. How to Use

• Inline: {red|blue|green} picks one color directly from your text.

• Files: __subjects__ picks a random line from wildcards/subjects.txt.

• Multi-Pick: __colors__+3 picks 3 unique colors from the file.

• Pattern Search: __*locati*__ finds any file containing "locati" (like locations.txt or old_location.txt).

• Nested: You can mix them! Example: {__hero__|__villain__} in __*world*__.

3. Settings Explained

• history_depth: * 0 (Recommended): The "Auto-Pool". Remembers everything until the file is empty.

  • 1+: Fixed memory. Remembers the last X items and blocks them.

• reset_history: Set to True to clear the brain. (Turn back to False after one run).

• debug: Enables the color-coded live feed in your terminal.

4. Reading the Debug Logs (Console)

• 🟢 [CHOICE]: The word picked from your file.

• 🔴 (Repeat!): Only appears if a word is picked again (helps you tune your history depth).

• 🟡 [STATS]: Pool 400/452 means 400 fresh lines are left; Skips shows how many were blocked.

• 🔵 [RESET]: The pool was empty, so the node started a new cycle.

• 🟣 [TIMER]: Shows exactly how many milliseconds the processing took.

Why use this?

• Total Variety: Ensures you see every single line of your wildcard files before a repeat occurs.

• Deep Logic: Files can contain other tags, allowing for infinitely complex prompt chains.

• Efficiency: All memory is stored in RAM. It’s fast and resets when you restart ComfyUI.