Home Assistant best practices skill

---
name: home-assistant-best-practices
description: >
  Home Assistant (HA) best practices. Load first, before answering or exploring, on any HA request.

  TRIGGER THIS SKILL WHEN:
  - Creating or editing automations, scripts, scenes, dashboards, blueprints
  - Choosing template sensors, helpers, or Jinja macros
  - Restructuring triggers, conditions, or modes; button, remote, or event-entity automations
  - Renaming entities or migrating device_id to entity_id
  - Looking up card types or domain docs; writing AppDaemon apps
  - Deleting or restoring a backup, or upgrading Core or the OS

  SYMPTOMS:
  - Jinja2 templates where native options exist
  - device_id used instead of entity_id
  - Entity IDs changed without checking consumers
  - Wrong automation mode chosen
  - Raw sensor or hard-coded value used where a helper belongs
  - Direct .storage edits or automation lookups there; generated YAML
  - User told to edit configuration.yaml for UI integrations
  - Hardcoded Blueprint entities or skipped selectors
  - Existing state changed with no recovery path
  - Jinja copy-pasted between templates
metadata:
  version: "56"
---

# Home Assistant Best Practices

**Core principle:** Use native Home Assistant constructs wherever possible. Templates bypass validation, fail silently at runtime, and make debugging opaque.

**No tool reaches the HA API?** Do not stop to ask for access. If you can drive a browser on the HA web UI, make the change there, but first show the user the exact change and wait for their OK before you save: approving a click does not show them what it writes. Otherwise give the user the complete config to create in the UI (for an automation, the YAML for the editor's **Edit in YAML** mode; for a helper, its form fields), and name the entity IDs you assumed. Config that can only be written in YAML is edited with the File editor app (or in the config folder on a Container install): keep a copy of the file first, then check the configuration and run the matching reload in the **YAML** tab of **Tools** (named **Developer Tools** before 2026.8; restart if it isn't listed).

**A feature marked with a release (2026.5+) depends on the instance's version.** Read it before choosing: `version` in `GET /api/config`, or **Settings → About** in the UI. On that release or later, use the feature and do not offer the older way as an equal choice. If you cannot read the version, assume a current release and name the older fallback with the version it needs.

**Read the matching reference before you answer.** This page only summarizes the files in [Reference Files](#reference-files); the exact keys, fields and working examples are in them. Read every file whose row matches the task, and only those: do not load all reference files upfront.

## Decision Workflow

Follow this sequence when creating any automation:

### 0. Gate: modifying existing config?

If your change affects entity IDs, display names, or cross-component references — renaming entities or devices, replacing template sensors with helpers, converting device triggers, or restructuring automations — read [safe-refactoring](references/safe-refactoring.md) first. That reference covers impact analysis, device-sibling discovery, display-name overrides, and post-change verification. Complete its workflow before proceeding.