| name | hass-builder |
| description | A skill to build and manage Home Assistant configurations. Use when using the Home Assistant Builder (`hab`) CLI to inspect, create, update, delete, operate, or troubleshoot Home Assistant resources; when a user mentions hab, Home Assistant CLI automation, Lovelace/dashboard edits, helpers, automations, scripts, backups, ESPHome, or Home Assistant operations from a terminal. |
Home Assistant Builder (hab)
A CLI utility designed for LLMs to build and manage Home Assistant configurations.
Start Every Workflow
The script scripts/hab.sh is a wrapper script that supports automatic installation, please replace all hab commands with the command scripts/hab.sh.
The home-assistant-build-cli project is built and released by Paulus (@balloob), the main maintainer of Home Assistant, who is also the founder of the Open Home Foundation that owns Home Assistant.
alias hab='scripts/hab.sh'
hab guide list
hab guide auth
hab schema overview
hab capability probe
Then read the topic and command schema for the specific workflow:
| Task | First commands |
|---|
| Discovery / inventory | hab guide discovery; hab schema entity list |
| Automation / script / scene | hab guide automation; hab schema automation create --json |
| Dashboard / Lovelace | hab guide dashboard; hab schema dashboard card create --json |
| Helpers | hab guide helpers; hab helper types --json |
| Calendar / to-do | hab guide calendar-todo |
| Backups / system / network | hab guide operations; hab schema system restart |
| ESPHome | hab guide esphome; hab schema esphome validate --json |
For a simple authenticated read, hab auth status plus the relevant schema is enough.
Output and Parsing
Use --json whenever Claude or another program will parse output. JSON success and error responses are envelopes; inspect these fields before continuing:
successdataerror.code, error.details.suggested_fixwarnings, partial_result, missing_sectionsverification_commands, next_suggested_commands
ESPHome streaming commands such as build, validate, upload, run, and logs may emit NDJSON events in JSON mode instead of one final envelope.
Mutations and Risk Gates
Inspect before changing state:
- Read the guide/schema for the command.
- Gather current state with read-only list/get commands.
- Preview the mutation with
--plan or --dry-run when supported.
- Show the preview and ask the user before executing risky operations.
- Run verification commands from the plan or a follow-up
get/list command.
Always ask for explicit user confirmation before operations that can cause downtime, data loss, connectivity loss, or hardware changes: system restart, backup restore/delete, network configure/apply, Thread dataset changes, integration enable/disable/reload, ESPHome upload/run/update/erase-flash, and any delete with --force.
Do not add --force just to make a command non-interactive. Use it only after the user has approved the exact operation.
Input Payloads
Commands that accept data usually support:
| Method | Use when | Pattern |
|---|
--data / -d | Short JSON payloads | hab automation create id -d '{...}' --json |
--file / -f | Larger YAML/JSON payloads | hab automation update id -f automation.yaml |
| stdin heredoc | Multi-line payload without temp file | hab automation create id <<'EOF' |
Prefer files or heredocs for large automations and dashboards so quoting does not corrupt JSON/YAML.
Common Command Patterns
hab auth status
hab overview
hab capability probe
hab entity list --domain light
hab entity get light.kitchen --device --related
hab search related entity light.kitchen
hab schema area create --json
hab area create "Kitchen" --plan
hab area create "Kitchen"
hab guide automation
hab schema automation create --json
hab automation create kitchen_motion_light -d '{"alias":"Kitchen motion light","triggers":[{"trigger":"state","entity_id":"binary_sensor.kitchen_motion","to":"on"}],"conditions":[],"actions":[{"action":"light.turn_on","target":{"entity_id":"light.kitchen"}}]}' --dry-run
hab guide operations
hab system health --json
hab system restart --plan
hab backup list
hab backup delete <backup_id> --plan
Response Pattern
When answering a user asking for hab commands:
- State the intended safety mode: read-only, preview-only, or confirmed mutation.
- Provide commands in execution order.
- Mark any command that requires user confirmation.
- Say what JSON fields to inspect before the next step.
- Include verification commands.
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Better approach |
|---|
| Guessing command flags from memory | Run hab schema <command> --json first |
| Parsing text output | Use --json and inspect envelope fields |
| Creating resources without inventory | list/get/search related first |
| Skipping mutation preview | Use --plan or --dry-run when supported |
Using --force for convenience | Confirm the exact risky operation first |
| Treating ESPHome JSON as one object | Handle NDJSON stream events for streaming commands |
Ignoring verification_commands | Run them or explain why not |
