ADR-0013: Desktop is driven over CDP and installed by git clone¶
Status: accepted (2026-08). The ComfyUI-Manager install route was
removed in two steps: non-main branches moved to git clone in 2026-08 after
Manager proved unable to install these packs, and main -- which had kept
the registry-tile clickthrough on the theory that it should test what a
registry user gets -- followed in 2026-09. Testing Manager's registry is not
testing the pack's install. tests/test_no_manager_install.py fails if any
of it returns.
Decision¶
The ComfyUI Desktop lane is tested as the Electron application it is: download the real installer, launch the app, attach over the Chrome DevTools Protocol, and drive the first-run wizard, installation and workflow execution from inside it (
platforms/desktop/cdp_driver.py). The pack is installed by git clone + pip +install.py, executed inside the app's own environment -- not through ComfyUI-Manager.
Context¶
Desktop is not "ComfyUI in a venv with a window". It ships its own bundled Python and torch, its own install location, a first-run wizard, and an in-app Manager. A user's pack lands there through a different mechanism than on a server install, so testing the server path proves nothing about Desktop.
The obvious install route was the Manager's CLI (cm_cli install <repo>),
and the lanes were built that way first. It did not work for these packs:
comfyui_manager imports from comfy.cli_args import args at module load,
and comfy is not a site-packages module in Desktop -- it lives inside the
bundled app resources, on a PYTHONPATH the app sets at launch and a
standalone cm_cli process does not. Working around that meant
reconstructing the app's own environment from outside it, and the result
still failed to install the packs.
What does work is doing from inside the app what a developer does in their
own Desktop terminal: clone the repo into custom_nodes, pip install its
requirements, run its install.py, restart, execute the workflows. That is
what the CDP driver does, capturing the terminal output as video along the
way.
Alternatives rejected¶
- ComfyUI-Manager CLI. Tried, shipped behind a flag, then deleted: cannot import ComfyUI from outside the bundled app. (The dead steps were removed from both desktop lanes in 2026-08 because "disabled while we iterate" wrongly implied pending work.)
- Treating Desktop as another venv lane. Would test a configuration no Desktop user has, and skip the wizard, the bundled interpreter and the app's own install path -- i.e. everything specific to Desktop.
- Skipping Desktop. It is a first-class distribution channel; packs break there specifically.
Consequences¶
- Desktop lanes install the pack in a different way than a Desktop user running Manager would. They match the developer/git route. Manager installation remains untested, and a pack that installs by git but not by Manager would pass here.
- The driver is one large injected script running in the app's Python, so it cannot import comfy-test; shared helpers (e.g. run provenance) are mirrored there deliberately.
provenance.install_modeisdesktop, andtorch_versionis reported as observed rather than pinned -- the app brings its own (ADR-0005 does not apply).- The lanes emit a synthetic
systementry inresults.jsonso the report renders a card for the boot/terminal capture. It sits alongside real workflow results; anything aggregatingworkflows[]should be aware it is a display slot, not a test verdict. - CDP is also what makes Desktop capture work (ADR-0010) without a separate browser install -- the app is the browser.