hass-builder

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
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.

```bash
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:

- `success`
- `data`
- `error.code`, `error.details.suggested_fix`
- `warnings`, `partial_result`, `missing_sections`
- `verification_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:

1. Read the guide/schema for the command.
2. Gather current state with read-only list/get commands.
3. Preview the mutation with `--plan` or `--dry-run` when supported.
4. Show the preview and ask the user before executing risky operations.
5. 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

```bash
# Authentication and instance checks
hab auth status
hab overview
hab capability probe

# Entity inventory
hab entity list --domain light
hab entity get light.kitchen --device --related
hab search related entity light.kitchen

# Safe mutation preview
hab schema area create --json
hab area create "Kitchen" --plan
hab area create "Kitchen"

# Automation creation
hab guide aut