Fooocus¶

Development line: project:fooocus · thread fooocus-development
Last event: 2023-09-12 · 2 dated since 2023-08-13 · Researched: 2026-09-04 · confidence: medium

What it is¶

Fooocus is a local, offline SDXL image generator for creators who want a simpler prompt-first workflow than ComfyUI.

• Text-to-image with styles and prompt expansion.
• Variations, upscale, inpaint/outpaint, Image Prompt, and face swap.
• General, realistic, and anime presets.

Development line¶

• 2023-08-13 — Fooocus repository and Windows release artifact linked. On 2023-08-13, we linked Fooocus to its GitHub repository and Windows 64-bit release archive. This records a public distributable artifact in the Fooocus development line.
• 2023-09-12 — Fooocus development discussion linked. On 2023-09-12, we linked the Fooocus development line to GitHub Discussion #347. This links the thread to the Fooocus v2-era history, though we have not researched the discussion content itself.

What changed¶

2023-08-13 — Fooocus entered its public v1 state. The update log marks v1.0.15 as publicly available.

2023-09-12 — Fooocus 2.0.0 replaced the text-processing engine, added multi-style prompting, and renamed Prompt Expansion and Raw Mode to Fooocus V2. The maintainer reported V2 beating V1 in 87/100 default results and 81/100 prompt-understanding tests, judged by two people.

2026-09-04 (found today, not a release date) — upstream describes Fooocus as SDXL-only, limited LTS, and bug-fix-only. Release v2.5.5 is currently marked Latest and contains a Colab inpaint fix.

How to use this¶

From 2023-08-13, use the public GitHub repository and Windows distribution artifact. From 2023-09-12, consult the linked development discussion before relying on v2-era behavior.

1. Confirm that an SDXL workflow fits the task; Fooocus is not the maintained path for Flux or other newer architectures. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
2. On Windows, use the official download, extract it, and run run.bat. On Linux, clone the repository, install pinned requirements in Conda or a Python 3.10 venv, then run entry_with_update.py. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
3. Let the first launch download selected models, then use the default, anime, or realistic preset in the UI or with --preset anime / --preset realistic. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
4. Write a prompt, choose styles or Advanced settings as needed, and use Input Image for variation, upscale, inpaint/outpaint, or Image Prompt workflows. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
5. Keep the UI local unless remote access is needed. For --listen or --share, add an auth.json because access is unauthenticated by default. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus

Best practices¶

• Install only from the official GitHub repository or its linked downloads; upstream warns that similarly named Fooocus websites are fake. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
• Treat Fooocus as a stable SDXL tool. For Flux or newer-model work, follow upstream’s recommendation to use WebUI Forge, ComfyUI, or SwarmUI instead. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
• When switching presets, let required models finish downloading. Use --always-download-new-model if a preset must fetch its missing model rather than silently falling back to an older one. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
• Protect any network-exposed UI with auth.json. Neither --listen nor --share enables authentication by default. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
• Prefer supplied aspect ratios over arbitrary custom resolutions unless SDXL positional encoding is understood. — https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus/blob/main/update_log.md

Superseded by this¶

• 2023-08-13 — the v2.5.5 release currently marked Latest supersedes the public v1 state.
• 2023-09-12 — Fooocus 2.0 and its Fooocus V2 style supersede V1 text-processing guidance and the UI label “Prompt Expansion and Raw Mode”; disable that style when attempting to reproduce V1 output.
• 2026-09-04 (found today) — waiting for official Fooocus support for Flux or another new architecture is obsolete today: upstream is LTS with bug fixes only and directs Flux users elsewhere.

Still unknown¶

• We did not inspect the direct Windows archive at https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus/releases/download/release/Fooocus_win64_1-1-10.7z; its contents, checksum, and exact packaging version remain unconfirmed.
• The upstream update log marks v1.0.15 as publicly available without a calendar date, so its exact release timestamp remains unconfirmed.
• No separate product exists behind fooocus and fooocus_v2: the official discussion identifies the latter as Fooocus 2.0.0, not a different subject.

Sources¶

Agent brief¶

• Subject: project:fooocus, thread fooocus-development, 2 dated events 2023-08-13 → 2023-09-12.
• Practical note: From 2023-08-13, practitioners could treat Fooocus as having a publicly linked GitHub source location and Windows distribution artifact; from 2023-09-12, they should consult the linked development discussion before relying on v2-era behavior.
• Confidence: medium. Dated supersedes above are the authority for what is obsolete.