SD WebUI (Stable Diffusion WebUI)¶

Image generation via the Stable Diffusion WebUI REST API. Best for photorealism, portraits, anime, and artistic styles.

Compatible with AUTOMATIC1111, Forge, reForge, and Forge-neo.

Setup¶

Install and start one of the compatible WebUI forks with API access enabled:
```
# Start WebUI with API enabled
python launch.py --api
```

Set the host URL:

IMAGE_GENERATION_MCP_SD_WEBUI_HOST=http://localhost:7860

The provider registers automatically when IMAGE_GENERATION_MCP_SD_WEBUI_HOST is set.

Compatibility: SD WebUI version 1.6 (or equivalent Forge/reForge version) or later is required. The split sampler_name + scheduler API was introduced in 1.6; earlier versions do not support the scheduler field.

Model-aware presets¶

The provider auto-detects the SD architecture from the checkpoint name and applies optimized generation parameters:

SD 1.5 (default)¶

Used when no XL/Lightning/Turbo tag is found in the checkpoint name.

Parameter	Value
Base resolution	768px
Steps	30
CFG scale	7.0
Sampler	DPM++ 2M
Scheduler	Karras

Aspect ratio	Size
`1:1`	768x768
`16:9`	912x512
`9:16`	512x912
`3:2`	768x512
`2:3`	512x768

SDXL¶

Used when checkpoint name contains sdxl, xl_, _xl, or -xl.

Parameter	Value
Base resolution	1024px
Steps	35
CFG scale	7.5
Sampler	DPM++ 2M
Scheduler	Karras

Aspect ratio	Size
`1:1`	1024x1024
`16:9`	1344x768
`9:16`	768x1344
`3:2`	1216x832
`2:3`	832x1216

SDXL Lightning/Turbo¶

Used when checkpoint name contains XL tags AND lightning or turbo.

Parameter	Value
Base resolution	1024px
Steps	6
CFG scale	2.0
Sampler	DPM++ SDE
Scheduler	Karras

Sizes are the same as standard SDXL.

Flux Dev¶

Used when checkpoint name contains flux (without schnell). Requires Forge or compatible fork with Flux support.

Parameter	Value
Base resolution	1024px
Steps	20
CFG scale	1.0
Distilled CFG scale	3.5 (Forge-specific)
Sampler	Euler
Scheduler	Simple
Negative prompt	Not supported

Sizes are the same as SDXL.

Flux Schnell¶

Used when checkpoint name contains both flux and schnell. Optimized for fast inference.

Parameter	Value
Base resolution	1024px
Steps	4
CFG scale	1.0
Distilled CFG scale	3.5 (Forge-specific)
Sampler	Euler
Scheduler	Simple
Negative prompt	Not supported

Sizes are the same as SDXL.

Prompt style¶

Different SD architectures use different prompt styles. Check list_providers to see each model's prompt_style field.

SD 1.5 / SDXL / Lightning (`prompt_style: "clip"`)¶

Use comma-separated CLIP tags ordered by importance. Include quality tags (masterpiece, best quality) and a negative prompt for best results. See the Prompt Writing Guide for detailed tag recommendations and BREAK syntax.

Flux (`prompt_style: "natural_language"`)¶

Flux models use a T5 text encoder instead of CLIP. Write prompts as natural language descriptions — complete sentences, not comma-separated tags.

Do NOT use with Flux: - Quality tags (masterpiece, best quality) — meaningless to T5 - Negative prompts — Flux does not support them (the server omits them automatically) - BREAK syntax — Flux does not use CLIP chunking

Example:

A dramatic mountain landscape at sunset with towering peaks reflected
in a perfectly still alpine lake, storm clouds lit orange and purple
by the setting sun

Checkpoint override¶

Server default (env var)¶

To set a default checkpoint for all generation requests:

IMAGE_GENERATION_MCP_SD_WEBUI_MODEL=realisticVisionV60B1_v51VAE.safetensors

When SD_WEBUI_MODEL is set, the provider sends override_settings.sd_model_checkpoint in the API payload and uses the checkpoint name for preset detection.

Per-call override (model parameter)¶

The model parameter on generate_image overrides the server default for a single request. Preset detection (steps, CFG, sampler, sizes) uses the per-call model name, not the constructor default:

generate_image(prompt="...", provider="sd_webui", model="dreamshaperXL_v21.safetensors")

Use list_providers to discover available checkpoints and their model IDs.

Background transparency¶

The background parameter is not supported by SD WebUI. When background="transparent" is passed, it is silently ignored (a debug log is emitted). Stable Diffusion does not natively support transparent background generation.

Capability discovery¶

At startup, the provider calls:

GET /sdapi/v1/sd-models -- lists all installed checkpoints
GET /sdapi/v1/options -- identifies the currently active checkpoint

Each checkpoint is mapped to a ModelCapabilities object with architecture-specific defaults (resolution, steps, CFG, sampler) based on the same name detection used for generation presets.

If the SD WebUI server is unreachable (connection error or timeout), the provider is marked as degraded -- it remains available for generation but with an empty model list in the capabilities response. This prevents a slow or offline SD WebUI instance from blocking server startup.

Negative prompts¶

SD WebUI has native negative prompt support via the negative_prompt field in the API payload. This is more effective than OpenAI's "Avoid:" workaround.

Note: Flux models do not support negative prompts. When a Flux checkpoint is detected, the negative_prompt field is omitted from the API payload entirely. If a negative prompt is provided, it is silently ignored with a debug log.

See the Prompt Writing Guide for recommended negative prompts.

Progress polling¶

During image generation, the provider concurrently polls GET /sdapi/v1/progress every 2 seconds to report step-level progress. Progress updates are surfaced through show_image polling responses as progress (0.0–1.0) and progress_message (e.g., "Step 9/30 (ETA 12s)").

First poll fires immediately (poll-then-sleep pattern) — even fast generations receive at least one progress update
Polling failures are silently handled — if the progress endpoint returns an error or is unreachable, generation continues uninterrupted (failures logged at debug level)
Polling stops automatically when generation completes — the polling task is cancelled in a finally block

No additional configuration is required. Progress polling activates whenever the fire-and-forget pattern is used (which is always, as of v1.1.0).

Metadata¶

The provider extracts from the SD WebUI response:

seed -- the random seed used for generation (useful for reproducibility)
model name -- the active checkpoint name (from response info JSON)
size -- pixel dimensions used
steps -- number of diffusion steps

Timeout¶

The default timeout is 180 seconds. SDXL at high resolution on consumer GPUs can take 30-60+ seconds. If you experience timeouts, ensure your WebUI is responding.

Deprecated env var aliases¶

The previous A1111_HOST and A1111_MODEL env var names are still accepted as deprecated aliases:

Deprecated	Current
`IMAGE_GENERATION_MCP_A1111_HOST`	`IMAGE_GENERATION_MCP_SD_WEBUI_HOST`
`IMAGE_GENERATION_MCP_A1111_MODEL`	`IMAGE_GENERATION_MCP_SD_WEBUI_MODEL`

Troubleshooting¶

Error	Cause	Resolution
Connection error	Cannot reach SD WebUI	Verify WebUI is running with `--api` flag at the configured host
Timeout (180s)	Generation too slow	Check GPU utilization; consider a faster model or lower resolution
HTTP 404	Wrong API endpoint	Verify the WebUI version supports `/sdapi/v1/txt2img`