Hass Builder

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 listhab guide authhab schema overviewhab capability probe

Then read the topic and command schema for the specific workflow:

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:

Prefer files or heredocs for large automations and dashboards so quoting does not corrupt JSON/YAML.

Common Command Patterns

# Authentication and instance checkshab auth statushab overviewhab capability probe
# Entity inventoryhab entity list --domain lighthab entity get light.kitchen --device --relatedhab search related entity light.kitchen
# Safe mutation previewhab schema area create --jsonhab area create "Kitchen" --planhab area create "Kitchen"
# Automation creationhab guide automationhab schema automation create --jsonhab 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
# Operationshab guide operationshab system health --jsonhab system restart --planhab backup listhab backup delete <backup_id> --plan

Response Pattern

When answering a user asking for hab commands:

1. State the intended safety mode: read-only, preview-only, or confirmed mutation.
2. Provide commands in execution order.
3. Mark any command that requires user confirmation.
4. Say what JSON fields to inspect before the next step.
5. Include verification commands.

Common Mistakes