WorkBuddy Taps Local ComfyUI for Credit-Free Text-to-Image Generation
Per-image credit fees disappear when image generation runs on a local ComfyUI instance through WorkBuddy's skill system, so the meter only tracks your GPU's power draw. The pattern also demonstrates how a skill-creator plugin can turn a plain-language workflow spec into a working, constrained skill without hand-written code.
WorkBuddy's built-in image generation costs at least 5 platform credits per image, a price that daily free allowances exhaust quickly. A workaround connects a local ComfyUI instance to WorkBuddy, letting the agent call a text-to-image workflow directly over its local API. The setup requires exporting the ComfyUI workflow as an API (not just saving it), installing the skill-creator plugin from ModelScope, and then dragging the exported JSON plus a detailed specification into WorkBuddy. The skill-creator automatically generates a ComfyUI text-to-image skill with parameter validation, strict image-size limits, error handling, and model unloading after each run.
Once installed, the skill triggers the local workflow through ComfyUI's HTTP endpoint at 127.0.0.1:8188. WorkBuddy can even optimize prompts before sending. The final step modifies an existing ink-wash sketch skill to call this new ComfyUI skill instead of the credit-based image model. The result is unlimited illustrations without spending platform credits, as long as the local GPU and ComfyUI remain running.
The credit meter is the real driver; the free daily allowance is trivial for image generation, so a local fallback offers a practical escape hatch for heavy users.
The skill-creator plugin converts a natural-language specification into a working skill, but the spec must be detailed enough to enforce parameter locking, size validation, and error handling for the result to be reliable.
This workflow depends on a local GPU and a continuously running ComfyUI, so it is a self-hosted alternative to managed API pricing, not a universal solution for every user.