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ComfyUI workflows are JSON objects that describe a graph of nodes. When calling ComfyUI programmatically — whether through the Cloud API or running your own server — the workflow must be submitted in API format, a specialized JSON structure that differs from the regular save format used in the browser. This page explains the differences and how to export your workflows correctly.

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Save Format vs API Format

The ComfyUI frontend can save workflows in two formats:
Save FormatAPI Format
File menuFile → Save or Ctrl+SFile → Export Workflow (API)
File extension.json.json
Node keysNode titles or labelsNumeric node IDs
Widget valuesIncludedIncluded
Position/layout dataIncluded (x, y, width)Excluded
Colors/groupsIncludedExcluded
UsageRe-opening in the frontendAPI submission
Can be loaded in UIYesYes, but without layout
The key difference: API format omits UI metadata (positions, colors, groups, node sizes) that is only needed for visual editing in the frontend. This keeps the JSON smaller and cleaner for programmatic use.

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How to Export

Open your workflow in the ComfyUI frontend, then navigate to File → Export Workflow (API):
Saving a workflow in API format
This will download a .json file containing only the API-relevant data: 
{
  "3": {
    "inputs": {
      "seed": 156680208700286,
      "steps": 20,
      "cfg": 8,
      "sampler_name": "euler",
      "scheduler": "normal",
      "denoise": 1,
      "model": [
        "4",
        0
      ],
      "positive": [
        "6",
        0
      ],
      "negative": [
        "7",
        0
      ],
      "latent_image": [
        "5",
        0
      ]
    },
    "class_type": "KSampler",
    "_meta": {
      "title": "KSampler"
    }
  },
  "4": {
    "inputs": {
      "ckpt_name": "v1-5-pruned-emaonly-fp16.safetensors"
    },
    "class_type": "CheckpointLoaderSimple",
    "_meta": {
      "title": "Load Checkpoint"
    }
  },
  "5": {
    "inputs": {
      "width": 512,
      "height": 512,
      "batch_size": 1
    },
    "class_type": "EmptyLatentImage",
    "_meta": {
      "title": "Empty Latent Image"
    }
  },
  "6": {
    "inputs": {
      "text": "beautiful scenery nature glass bottle landscape, , purple galaxy bottle,",
      "clip": [
        "4",
        1
      ]
    },
    "class_type": "CLIPTextEncode",
    "_meta": {
      "title": "CLIP Text Encode (Prompt)"
    }
  },
  "7": {
    "inputs": {
      "text": "text, watermark",
      "clip": [
        "4",
        1
      ]
    },
    "class_type": "CLIPTextEncode",
    "_meta": {
      "title": "CLIP Text Encode (Prompt)"
    }
  },
  "8": {
    "inputs": {
      "samples": [
        "3",
        0
      ],
      "vae": [
        "4",
        2
      ]
    },
    "class_type": "VAEDecode",
    "_meta": {
      "title": "VAE Decode"
    }
  },
  "9": {
    "inputs": {
      "filename_prefix": "ComfyUI",
      "images": [
        "8",
        0
      ]
    },
    "class_type": "SaveImage",
    "_meta": {
      "title": "Save Image"
    }
  }
}

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Converting Between Formats

If you have a save-format workflow and need it in API format, the simplest method is:
  1. Open the .json file using File → Load in the frontend
  2. Export it via File → Export Workflow (API)
For automated conversion, you can write a script that strips the x, y, width fields from each node and removes the groups and extra sections from the root JSON.