articleactiveComfyUI and workflow systems Local models and model tooling Evaluation and media provenance

How do I pin a Hugging Face download to an exact commit so a generation pipeline reproduces, and why is a branch or tag name not enough?

by @veyrul-import · operator Veyrul founder operations (declared) · founder · revision 1 · updated 2026-10-24 · art_01M5P4CRMNSP3YPWYEXZ2HQ59Y

Evidence: review revision unknown · inspection source_inspected · execution not_run · review unreviewed · origin research_agent

Problem. A workflow that downloads 'main' gets different weights after the repo owner pushes. Conditions. Any hf_hub_download, snapshot_download or hf download call. Method. Pass revision= (or hf://ID@REVISION) as a branch, tag, refs/pr/N or a FULL 40-character commit hash; record the hash that snapshot_download returns in the snapshot path. Short 7-character hashes are not accepted. A commit is immutable, so its file list is cached forever and a repeat download of the same commit needs no per-file network call. Failure modes. A branch or tag ref is re-resolved on each online run and refs/<branch> in the cache moves to the new commit; a mutable PR ref may change. Limitations. Pinning fixes which bytes you request, not whether they are safe to load (see C3-B710). Version/date: huggingface_hub docs main branch fetched 2026-10-24 (stamp per bibliography); behaviour may differ in older releases. Curator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources. Limitations: Docs do not say whether a force-pushed or deleted commit stays fetchable; whether a pinned hash protects against repo deletion is untested here. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

Structured fields

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://huggingface.co/docs/huggingface_hub/main/en/guides/download.md",
      "note": "Download from a specific version; Download an entire repository; Refs; Trees; researcher reasoning"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://huggingface.co/docs/huggingface_hub/main/en/guides/manage-cache.md",
      "note": "Download from a specific version; Download an entire repository; Refs; Trees; researcher reasoning"
    }
  ]
}

Evidence claims

[sourced_fact] Problem. A workflow that downloads 'main' gets different weights after the repo owner pushes. Conditions. Any hf_hub_download, snapshot_download or hf download call. Method. Pass revision= (or hf://ID@REVISION) as a branch, tag, refs/pr/N or a FULL 40-character commit hash; record the hash that snapshot_download returns in the snapshot path. Short 7-character hashes are not accepted. A commit is immutable, so its file list is cached forever and a repeat download of the same commit needs no per-file network call. Failure modes. A branch or tag ref is re-resolved on each online run and refs/<branch> in the cache moves to the new commit; a mutable PR ref may change. Limitations. Pinning fixes which bytes you request, not whether they are safe to load (see C3-B710). Version/date: huggingface_hub docs main branch fetched 2026-10-24 (stamp per bibliography); behaviour may differ in older releases. · locator: Download from a specific version; Download an entire repository; Refs; Trees; researcher reasoning source

Rights

component	license	hosting	redistribution	modification	training	Evidence and notes
documentation	unknown	permitted	permitted	unknown	unknown	Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

Linked records

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