EricRollei-Local_LLM_Prompt_Enhancer/docs/WILDCARD_GUIDE.md

Wildcard and Variation Guide

Wildcards turn one prompt into many. Every enhancer node in this package resolves them before the LLM sees the text, tells the LLM which elements were picked, and checks that the ones you marked as exact survived the rewrite. The grammar is the Dynamic Prompts / Impact Pack grammar, so packs you have already downloaded work as they are, with a few additions on top.

Everything written for the first version of this guide still works: {animal}, {instrument:piano|guitar|drums}.

Where lists live

Put packs in ComfyUI/models/wildcards. Every node reads that folder, plus any wildcards: entry in extra_model_paths.yaml, with no configuration. The lists that ship with the package are in its own wildcards/ folder; see the README there for the search order and what happens when two folders define the same name (the first folder wins, your pack replaces the shipped list).

python_embeded\python.exe custom_nodes\video_prompter\dev\scan_wildcard_packs.py reports on everything found: unreadable files, names defined twice, references to packs you do not have.

Special folders inside a pack folder

_nsfw/<pack>/...    NSFW lists, rated explicit. Only a node whose nsfw is explicit uses them; there
                    they answer to their name without the _nsfw/ prefix. _nsfw/suggestive/<pack>/ and
                    _nsfw/nudity/<pack>/ rate a folder lower (see NSFW levels).
_generated/...      lists written by the tools themselves. Always searched.
_prompts/<pack>/... whole prompts, one per line (see Prompt files). Answer only to prompts/... names.
_anything_else/     any other top-level folder starting with "_" is ignored
                    (_duplicates, _quarantine, _cleanup, ...).

Lists whose own name rates them (nsfw_poses.txt, sex_act.txt, a YAML key clothes/nsfw, lingerie.txt) are gated by level wherever they sit (see NSFW levels). __MACOSX, .git and ._ fork files are always skipped. Entries that pair minor-related and sexual terms are removed at load time in every folder, whatever the nsfw level says. The same test runs on each finished prompt, where terms from different picks meet, with explicit sexual terms only (nudity words alone do not count there): a roll that fails is re-rolled with derived seeds when the picks caused it, and blanked with the reason in the report (or, for an LLM's rewrite, in the console) when the typed text did or no re-roll passes. It is a plain word match (no LLM, no VRAM), on by default; config.json -> "wildcards": {"content_filter": false} turns both checks off. <lora:...> tags inside entries are removed at load time (config.json -> "wildcards": {"strip_lora": false} keeps them).

Renamed and dumped lists

The wildcard review (tools/wildcard_review) can rename a list you keep: a .txt is renamed in its folder, a key inside a YAML / JSON file is written out as its own .txt (the old key hidden, the pack file untouched). The old name keeps working: _catalog_user.yaml gets aliases: {old name: new name}, so saved workflows and templates still find it. Its "Move dumped files" step moves dumped files to _dumped/ (same paths; skipped like every other _ folder). Both write a manifest; python tools/wildcard_review/server.py --undo <manifest> puts things back. A list's slot: in _catalog_user.yaml may name several Composer buttons (a list of ids).

Prompt files (_prompts)

Lists whose entries are whole prompts live in _prompts/, keeping their pack and theme folders (dev/move_prompt_lists.py moved them there; --undo <manifest> puts them back). They are their own area:

__prompts/<pack>/<theme>/<file>__   one prompt from that file
__prompts/<pack>/<theme>/*__        one prompt from any file in that folder (and its subfolders)
__prompts/<pack>/<theme>__          the same: a folder name stands for everything in it

Nothing else reaches them: a bare name (__forest__), an ordinary glob (__*/forest__), the Composer's buttons, More lists, Find and the catalog only ever see the normal lists, so a whole prompt can't land in a Setting or Style pill. A YAML or JSON file under _prompts/ is named with its folder in front (_prompts/pack/x.yaml with key mood/rain -> prompts/pack/mood/rain); a file that is only a list (a JSON array) is named after the file. _prompts/_nsfw/... is rated like _nsfw/ and answers to prompts/.... Stars, hide, drop and entry ratings work as for any list (saved under the prompts/... name).

NSFW levels

Every node that resolves wildcards has an nsfw setting, the same levels as the LoRA cards and the LoRA Suggester:

Setting	A run uses
off (default)	SFW only: no suggestive, nude or explicit lists or entries
suggestive	also lingerie, bikinis, underwear, "sexy", "seductive", cleavage ...
nudity	also nude, naked, topless, nipples ...
explicit	everything, including lists under _nsfw/

off is its own category: to get suggestive content, set suggestive. Lists and entries are rated by a word match (no LLM, no VRAM), and you can correct any rating:

• A list is rated by its folder (_nsfw/ = explicit; _nsfw/suggestive/ and _nsfw/nudity/ rate a folder lower; the level folder is not part of the name, so _nsfw/nudity/pack/poses answers to __pack/poses__), by its name below the pack folder (lingerie, underwear, bikini -> suggestive; nude, naked, topless -> nudity; nsfw, sex, porn, fetish -> explicit), or by the catalog finding explicit content. A list above the run's level does not exist for lookups, globs, tag queries or slot buttons.
• An entry is rated by its words, so an SFW list can still hold a few suggestive entries and an off run leaves just those out. Words that mean something else are exempt ("Garter Snake", "Naked Mole Rat", "nude pumps", "a bottomless pit", "summa cum laude").
• A reference whose list, or every entry in it, is above the run's level is dropped from the prompt (like the violence filter) and the report says nsfw filter (off): __lingerie__ dropped ....
• Your corrections go in _catalog_user.yaml (see the Catalog section): nsfw: <level> on a list, ratings: on single entries, or a top-level ratings: for an entry in every list. The Composer's list viewer writes both: the NSFW level menu by the stars, and a small menu on every rated entry. Entries the node's level leaves out are shown greyed.

The Wildcard Composer passes its level on in sections; the LoRA Suggester uses the lowest of what the prompt asks for, its own nsfw setting and the Composer's level. dev/nsfw_levels_dryrun.py rates your whole library without changing anything (report in dev/logs/nsfw_levels_dryrun.md, every rated entry in dev/logs/nsfw_entry_ratings.csv).

Violence filter

Every node with nsfw also has violence_filter, right after it:

Setting	Held back
off (default)	nothing
no gore	blood and gore, torture, mutilation, dismemberment, corpses
no gore or violent acts	also murder, massacre, execution, stabbing, strangling, suicide / self-harm
no violence or weapons	also guns, swords, knives, bombs, battle, war

It works on wildcard picks: entries whose words fall in the chosen tier (or a lower one) are skipped, and lists whose name says it (gore, torture, violence, weapons, guns ...) are hidden, in the Composer's buttons too. A reference whose entries are all held back is dropped from the prompt (a knight holding __weapons__ -> a knight holding). Text you type is left as is.

Whatever either filter did (a re-roll, a blocked prompt, a dropped reference) is listed first in the node's report, one FILTER: ... line each. A word match, no model; titles and names that contain the words ("Corpse Bride") are held back with them.

Which list a bare name means

__pose__ is exact first. Inside a pack's own list, a reference resolves in that pack first, so a template written as __wildcards/quality__ finds its own pack's wildcards/quality. Otherwise __pose__ finds lists named pose in subfolders; when several packs have one, ONE pack is used (the highest-priority folder, then the shortest path) and the report names the others. Lists of different packs are never mixed by accident. To pool on purpose, write __**/pose__. config.json -> "wildcards": {"pool_mode": "legacy"} restores the old pool-everything lookup.

Syntax

__animal__                       one entry from animal.txt (or animal.yaml)
__light/setups__                 a list inside a folder
__painters__                     depth-agnostic: finds style/painters if no top-level list has that name
__materials__                    a folder name stands for everything inside it (same as __materials/**__)
__camera/**__                    any list under a folder
__colors*__                      glob on the name
__expression!{furious|sad}__     any entry except these (case-insensitive; markers go first: __=name!{a}__)

{red|green|blue}                 variant: one of these
{3::common|1::rare}              weights
{2$$red|green|blue}              two of them, joined with ", "
{1-3$$ and $$a|b|c|d}            one to three, joined with " and "
{-3$$a|b|c|d}  {2-$$a|b|c|d}     open ranges: up to three / two or more
{@a|b|c}                         cyclical: steps with the node's index instead of rolling

${who=!__person__} ... ${who}    pick once, reuse the same pick
${who=__person__} ... ${who}     store the wildcard, roll it again each time it is used
${mood:calm}                     a variable with a default
__season(place=harbour)__        pass a value into a list that uses ${place}

__objects[metal AND handheld]__  entries of a tagged list that match a tag expression
__[hollow AND antique]__         the same across every tagged list
                                 operators: AND OR NOT XOR and parentheses, in capitals

[if rain : umbrella | sunhat]    conditional on what was PICKED so far ({rain|sun} earlier in the prompt),
[if t=night : neon | sunlight]   or on a variable's value; words you typed yourself do not count
__db:red door__                  a matching prompt from the prompt database

{animal}  {label:a|b|c}          first-version forms, still accepted (legacy_syntax on)

Braces that are not wildcards are left alone: JSON prompts pass through untouched, and so does a single-option brace such as {word}.

When a pick lands behind "a" or "an", the article is corrected for it ("a {owl|cat}" reads "an owl"), by sound where spelling misleads ("a unicorn", "an hour"). Your own words are never changed.

Concepts, exact words, inspiration

A wildcard pick is an idea, not a string. After the picks are made, the LLM is given a short block listing them and is free to say each one in whatever words suit the target model: "rusty" may become "oxidised steel flaking orange at the seams" for a prose model or rust, corroded metal for a tag model. Three bindings decide how tightly a pick is held:

__materials__     concept (default)   the meaning must survive; the wording is the LLM's
__=lora_triggers__  {=a|b}   verbatim  the exact string must survive. For LoRA triggers, names, text to render.
__?moods__          {?a|b}   loose     inspiration only; the LLM may transform or absorb it

Verbatim picks are checked in the LLM's answer and added back if it dropped them. The wildcard_llm_block toggle on each node turns the block off, in which case the LLM only sees the resolved text.

The catalog and your curation

The first time a node uses wildcards, a background thread indexes every list into _catalog.sqlite in each wildcard folder (the package's own lists index into cache/catalogs/). Later starts only look at files that changed. For each list it records what kind of list it is (single items, phrases, full prompts, templates, booru tags), a quality score (clean, short, varied entries score high; quality boilerplate, weight syntax, broken characters and tiny lists score low), lists with identical content in other packs, and NSFW found by content: a list full of explicit words is rated explicit, like one under _nsfw/, wherever it sits.

Your own judgement goes in _catalog_user.yaml next to the lists. The Wildcard Prompt Composer's list viewer writes it (stars, Hide list, drop an entry); you can also edit it by hand:

lists:
  "mrweazsfwildcardssfw_v30glamour/hair_colors":
    stars: 5                     # ranks it first for slot buttons and ambiguous names
  "cushyswildcard_v6/pose":
    hidden: true                 # never used by a bare name, a glob or a slot; __its/exact/name__ still works
  "thepromptbuilder_v21ponyillustrious/face_expression":
    drop: [Sarcasm, Smug]        # these entries are never picked
  "some_pack/camera":
    nsfw: off                    # the list's NSFW level, overrides folder / name / content (off | suggestive | nudity | explicit)
    ratings: {lace boyshorts: off}   # one entry's level in this list (overrides its words)
ratings:                         # an entry's level in every list
  Naked Mole Rat: off

When a bare __name__ matches lists in several packs, the pack with your stars (else the best quality score) is used. Turn the whole thing off with "wildcards": {"catalog": false} in config.json.

Seeds

wildcard_seed on every enhancer: -1 rolls fresh picks on every run, 0 or more is reproducible (same seed, same lists, same picks). The Text-to-Image node uses its own random_seed and seed_mode instead. With several variations, variation N uses seed + N.

A fresh roll is not lost: the node's report shows the seed that was drawn, for example seed=1739572853 (fresh roll - use this number as the seed to get these picks again).

Nodes

Wildcard Processor resolves a prompt with no LLM. Outputs the text, the llm_instructions block, the full record as JSON, and a report. mode = combinatorial with a rising index walks every combination in order, which pairs well with sweep workflows.

Semantic Variation keeps a prompt's meaning and moves its picks. Each wildcard or {a|b} is a slot; a variation moves every slot to a semantic neighbour inside its own list. strength sets how far (0.1 = the nearest 1% of the list, 0.5 = a quarter of the way out, 1.0 = the far end), far_jumps lets a few slots jump while the rest drift, variation numbers are reproducible, and avoid_recent keeps the candidate least like what you generated lately. direction and direction_amount lean every move along a named axis (ordinary to uncanny, new to decayed, domestic to industrial, ...); the axes are example phrases in variability/directions.yaml, and your own go in variability/directions_user.yaml. The report shows each slot's lean, so you can see whether an axis bites on a given list.

Concept Survival Check measures whether concept picks survived a rewrite: for each concept it shows the phrase in the rewritten prompt that carries it and a similarity score, and for verbatim picks whether the exact words are there. all_survived can gate a retry.

Wildcard Character Composer (and later Scene / Style builders) writes a prompt section with slot buttons instead of typed syntax; see PROMPT_BUILDER_GUIDE.md.

Resolving upstream: when a Wildcard Processor or Semantic Variation node does the picking, connect its text to the enhancer's prompt and its llm_instructions to the enhancer's wildcard_instructions input. The enhancer then treats those picks exactly like its own.

Shipped lists worth knowing

__constraints__ is a deck of constraint cards, one rule that forces the picture to be invented ("lit only from below", "the main subject is present only as a reflection"). __?observers__ sees the scene through a particular kind of attention ("as recorded by a forensic photographer..."); use it with the loose marker so it colours the whole prompt. objects.yaml, spaces.yaml and materials.yaml are tagged by material, scale, domain and era for tag queries.

Writing lists

.txt: one entry per line, # comment lines ignored, optional weight prefix 3::common entry. .yaml: nested keys form the wildcard path; items are strings or {text, tags, weight}. Entries may contain wildcards themselves. Specific, physical entries ("a barn owl", "soft north-window light from the left") render far better than adjectives.