SenseNova-U1 is SenseTime's open-source unified multimodal model running natively in ComfyUI through smthemex's custom node pack. One model, five modes, no VAE, no separate text encoder — the entire pipeline collapses into a single GGUF. 8B parameters of MoT (Mixture-of-Transformers) architecture handling text-to-image, image editing, VQA, and interleaved generation from the same checkpoint.

USE 'EDIT' IMG MODE WITH REFERENCE FOR EDITING.

USE 'EDIT' IMG MODE WITH NO REFERENCE FOR TEXT TO IMAGE.

Two versions are available. The 8-step Turbo (distill) is the fast option — runs at 8 steps with cfg 1.0, lower VRAM, quick iteration. The Full Base Model is the quality option — 50 steps with cfg 4.0, more prompt adherence headroom. Do not mix these settings up. Turbo with cfg 4 will blow out, base with cfg 1 will look muddy. Match the settings to the checkpoint you downloaded.

GGUFs come in multiple quant sizes. Q6_K if you have headroom, Q8_0 for max fidelity.

Installation is straightforward. Clone the custom node into your ComfyUI custom_nodes folder:

git clone https://github.com/smthemex/ComfyUI_SenseNova_U1

Then install requirements using the portable embedded python from your ComfyUI root:

python_embeded\python.exe -m pip install -r ComfyUI\custom_nodes\ComfyUI_SenseNova_U1\requirements.txt

Drop the downloaded GGUF into ComfyUI/models/diffusion_models/ and restart ComfyUI. The SenseNova_SM_Model and SenseNova_SM_Sampler nodes will be available.

Workflow is three nodes: Load Image (optional) → SenseNova_SM_Model → SenseNova_SM_Sampler → Save Image. In the Model node, set diffusion_models to none, pick your GGUF, leave attn_backend on auto. In the Sampler node, set img_mode to the task you want, then dial in steps and cfg per the version you're running.

Settings cheat sheet: Turbo: cfg 1.0, steps 8 Base: cfg 4.0, steps 50 img_cfg 1.0, timestep_shift 3.0, do_sample on

VRAM tip: prefetch_count 1 for low-VRAM cards (less memory, slightly slower). Only set prefetch_count to 0 if you have 32 GB or more VRAM.

Links:

Custom Node — https://github.com/smthemex/ComfyUI_SenseNova_U1

GGUF Files (Turbo + Base) — https://huggingface.co/smthem/SenseNova-U1-8B-MoT-Merger-gguf/tree/main

Credits: Model by SenseTime (https://github.com/OpenSenseNova/SenseNova-U1), ComfyUI integration by smthemex, GGUF quantization by smthem on HuggingFace. License: Apache 2.0.