Automation Trigger
Triggers are what starts the processing of an automationAutomations in Home Assistant allow you to automatically respond to things that happen in and around your home. [Learn more] rule. When any of the automation’s triggers becomes true (trigger fires), Home Assistant will validate the conditions, if any, and call the action.
An automationAutomations in Home Assistant allow you to automatically respond to things that happen in and around your home. [Learn more] can be triggered by an eventEvery time something happens in Home Assistant, an event is fired. There are different types of events, such as state change events, when an action was triggered, or the time changed. All entities produce state change events. Every time a state changes, a state change event is produced. Events can be used to trigger automations or scripts. For example, you can trigger an automation when a light is turned on, then a speaker turns on in that room. Events can also be used to trigger actions in the frontend. For example, you can trigger an action when a button is pressed. [Learn more], a certain entityAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more] stateThe state holds the information of interest of an entity, for example, if a light is on or off. Each entity has exactly one state and the state only holds one value at a time. However, entities can store attributes related to that state such as brightness, color, or a unit of measurement. [Learn more], at a given time, and more. These can be specified directly or more flexible via templates. It is also possible to specify multiple triggers for one automation.
- Trigger ID
- Trigger variables
- Event trigger
- Home Assistant trigger
- MQTT trigger
- Numeric state trigger
- State trigger
- Sun trigger
- Tag trigger
- Template trigger
- Time trigger
- Time pattern trigger
- Persistent notification trigger
- Webhook trigger
- Zone trigger
- Geolocation trigger
- Device triggers
- Calendar trigger
- Sentence trigger
- Multiple triggers
- Multiple Entity IDs for the same Trigger
- Disabling a trigger
- Merging lists of triggers
Trigger ID
All triggers can be assigned an optional id
. If the ID is omitted, it will instead be set to the index of the trigger. The id
can be referenced from trigger conditions and actions. The id
does not have to be unique for each trigger, and it can be used to group similar triggers for use later in the automation (i.e., several triggers of different types that should all turn some entity on).
Video tutorial
This video tutorial explains how trigger IDs work.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: event
event_type: "MY_CUSTOM_EVENT"
id: "custom_event"
- trigger: mqtt
topic: "living_room/switch/ac"
id: "ac_on"
- trigger: state # This trigger will be assigned id="2"
entity_id:
- device_tracker.paulus
- device_tracker.anne_therese
to: "home"
Trigger variables
There are two different types of variables available for triggers. Both work like script level variables.
The first variant allows you to define variables that will be set when the trigger fires. The variables will be able to use templates and have access to the trigger
variable.
The second variant is setting variables that are available when attaching a trigger when the trigger can contain templated values. These are defined using the trigger_variables
key at an automation level. These variables can only contain limited templates. The triggers will not re-apply if the value of the template changes. Trigger variables are a feature meant to support using blueprint inputs in triggers.
automation:
trigger_variables:
my_event: example_event
triggers:
- trigger: event
# Able to use `trigger_variables`
event_type: "{{ my_event }}"
# These variables are evaluated and set when this trigger is triggered
variables:
name: "{{ trigger.event.data.name }}"
Event trigger
An event trigger fires when an event is being received. Events are the raw building blocks of Home Assistant. You can match events on just the event name or also require specific event data or context to be present.
Events can be fired by integrations or via the API. There is no limitation to the types. A list of built-in events can be found here.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: event
event_type: "MY_CUSTOM_EVENT"
# optional
event_data:
mood: happy
context:
user_id:
# any of these will match
- "MY_USER_ID"
- "ANOTHER_USER_ID"
It is also possible to listen for multiple events at once. This is useful for event that contain no, or similar, data and contexts.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: event
event_type:
- automation_reloaded
- scene_reloaded
It’s also possible to use limited templates in the event_type
, event_data
and context
options.
The event_type
, event_data
and context
templates are only evaluated when setting up the trigger, they will not be reevaluated for every event.
automation:
trigger_variables:
sub_event: ABC
node: ac
value: on
triggers:
- trigger: event
event_type: "{{ 'MY_CUSTOM_EVENT_' ~ sub_event }}"
Home Assistant trigger
Fires when Home Assistant starts up or shuts down.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: homeassistant
# Event can also be 'shutdown'
event: start
Automations triggered by the shutdown
event have 20 seconds to run, after which they are stopped to continue with the shutdown.
MQTT trigger
Fires when a specific message is received on given MQTT topic. Optionally can match on the payload being sent over the topic. The default payload encoding is ‘utf-8’. For images and other byte payloads use encoding: ''
to disable payload decoding completely.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: mqtt
topic: "living_room/switch/ac"
# Optional
payload: "on"
encoding: "utf-8"
The payload
option can be combined with a value_template
to process the message received on the given MQTT topic before matching it with the payload.
The trigger in the example below will trigger only when the message received on living_room/switch/ac
is valid JSON, with a key state
which has the value "on"
.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: mqtt
topic: "living_room/switch/ac"
payload: "on"
value_template: "{{ value_json.state }}"
It’s also possible to use limited templates in the topic
and payload
options.
The topic
and payload
templates are only evaluated when setting up the trigger, they will not be re-evaluated for every incoming MQTT message.
automation:
trigger_variables:
room: "living_room"
node: "ac"
value: "on"
triggers:
- trigger: mqtt
topic: "{{ room ~ '/switch/' ~ node}}"
# Optional
payload: "{{ 'state:' ~ value }}"
encoding: "utf-8"
Numeric state trigger
Fires when the numeric value of an entity’s state (or attribute’s value if using the attribute
property, or the calculated value if using the value_template
property) crosses a given threshold (equal excluded). On state change of a specified entity, attempts to parse the state as a number and fires if the value is changing from above to below or from below to above the given threshold (equal excluded).
Crossing the threshold means that the trigger only fires if the state wasn’t previously within the threshold.
If the current state of your entity is 50
and you set the threshold to below: 75
, the trigger would not fire if the state changed to e.g. 49
or 72
because the threshold was never crossed. The state would first have to change to e.g. 76
and then to e.g. 74
for the trigger to fire.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.temperature
# If given, will trigger when the value of the given attribute for the given entity changes..
attribute: attribute_name
# ..or alternatively, will trigger when the value given by this evaluated template changes.
value_template: "{{ state.attributes.value - 5 }}"
# At least one of the following required
above: 17
below: 25
# If given, will trigger when the condition has been true for X time; you can also use days and milliseconds.
for:
hours: 1
minutes: 10
seconds: 5
When the attribute
option is specified the trigger is compared to the given attribute
instead of the state of the entity.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id: climate.kitchen
attribute: current_temperature
above: 23
More dynamic and complex calculations can be done with value_template
. The variable ‘state’ is the state object of the entity specified by entity_id
.
The state of the entity can be referenced like this:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.temperature
value_template: "{{ state.state | float * 9 / 5 + 32 }}"
above: 70
Attributes of the entity can be referenced like this:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id: climate.kitchen
value_template: "{{ state.attributes.current_temperature - state.attributes.temperature_set_point }}"
above: 3
Listing above and below together means the numeric_state has to be between the two values. In the example above, the trigger would fire a single time if a numeric_state goes into the 17.1-24.9 range (above 17 and below 25). It will only fire again, once it has left the defined range and enters it again.
Number helpers (input_number
entities), number
, sensor
, and zone
entities
that contain a numeric value, can be used in the above
and below
thresholds.
However, the comparison will only be made when the entity specified in the trigger is updated. This would look like:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.outside_temperature
# Other entity ids can be specified for above and/or below thresholds
above: sensor.inside_temperature
The for:
can also be specified as HH:MM:SS
like this:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.temperature
# At least one of the following required
above: 17
below: 25
# If given, will trigger when condition has been for X time.
for: "01:10:05"
You can also use templates in the for
option.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id:
- sensor.temperature_1
- sensor.temperature_2
above: 80
for:
minutes: "{{ states('input_number.high_temp_min')|int }}"
seconds: "{{ states('input_number.high_temp_sec')|int }}"
actions:
- action: persistent_notification.create
data:
message: >
{{ trigger.to_state.name }} too high for {{ trigger.for }}!
The for
template(s) will be evaluated when an entity changes as specified.
Use of the for
option will not survive Home Assistant restart or the reload of automations. During restart or reload, automations that were awaiting for
the trigger to pass, are reset.
If for your use case this is undesired, you could consider using the automation to set an input_datetime
to the desired time and then use that input_datetime
as an automation trigger to perform the desired actions at the set time.
State trigger
In general, the state trigger fires when the state of any of given entities changes. The behavior is as follows:
- If only the
entity_id
is given, the trigger fires for all state changes, even if only a state attribute changed. - If at least one of
from
,to
,not_from
, ornot_to
are given, the trigger fires on any matching state change, but not if only an attribute changed.- To trigger on all state changes, but not on changed attributes, set at least one of
from
,to
,not_from
, ornot_to
tonull
.
- To trigger on all state changes, but not on changed attributes, set at least one of
- Use of the
for
option doesn’t survive a Home Assistant restart or the reload of automations.- During restart or reload, automations that were awaiting
for
the trigger to pass, are reset. - If for your use case this is undesired, you could consider using the automation to set an
input_datetime
to the desired time and then use thatinput_datetime
as an automation trigger to perform the desired actions at the set time.
- During restart or reload, automations that were awaiting
The values you see in your overview will often not be the same as the actual state of the entity. For instance, the overview may show Connected
when the underlying entity is actually on
. You should check the state of the entity by checking the states in the developer tool, under Developer Tools > States.
Examples
This automation triggers if either Paulus or Anne-Therese are home for one minute.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id:
- device_tracker.paulus
- device_tracker.anne_therese
# Optional
from: "not_home"
# Optional
to: "home"
# If given, will trigger when the condition has been true for X time; you can also use days and milliseconds.
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 1
seconds: 0
It’s possible to give a list of from
states or to
states:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: vacuum.test
from:
- "cleaning"
- "returning"
to: "error"
If you want to trigger on all state changes, but not on attribute changes, you can to
to null
(this would also work by setting from
, not_from
, or not_to
to null
):
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: vacuum.test
to:
If you want to trigger on all state changes except specific ones, use not_from
or not_to
The not_from
and not_to
options are the counter parts of from
and to
. They can be used to trigger on state changes that are not the specified state.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: vacuum.test
not_from:
- "unknown"
- "unavailable"
to: "on"
You cannot use from
and not_from
at the same time. The same applies to to
and not_to
.
Triggering on attribute changes
When the attribute
option is specified, the trigger only fires
when the specified attribute changes. Changes to other attributes or
state changes are ignored.
For example, this trigger only fires when the boiler has been heating for 10 minutes:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: climate.living_room
attribute: hvac_action
to: "heating"
for: "00:10:00"
This trigger fires whenever the boiler’s hvac_action
attribute changes:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: climate.living_room
attribute: hvac_action
Holding a state or attribute
You can use for
to have the state trigger only fire if the state holds for some time.
This example fires, when the entity state changed to "on"
and holds that
state for 30 seconds:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: light.office
# Must stay "on" for 30 seconds
to: "on"
for: "00:00:30"
When holding a state, changes to attributes are ignored. Changes to attributes don’t cancel the hold time.
You can also fire the trigger when the state value changed from a specific state, but hasn’t returned to that state value for the specified time.
This can be useful, e.g., checking if a media player hasn’t turned “off” for the time specified, but doesn’t care about “playing” or “paused”.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: media_player.kitchen
# Not "off" for 30 minutes
from: "off"
for: "00:30:00"
Please note, that when using from
, to
and for
, only the value of the
to
option is considered for the time specified.
In this example, the trigger fires if the state value of the entity remains the
same for for
the time specified, regardless of the current state value.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: media_player.kitchen
# The media player remained in its current state for 1 hour
for: "01:00:00"
You can also use templates in the for
option.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id:
- device_tracker.paulus
- device_tracker.anne_therese
to: "home"
for:
minutes: "{{ states('input_number.lock_min')|int }}"
seconds: "{{ states('input_number.lock_sec')|int }}"
actions:
- action: lock.lock
target:
entity_id: lock.my_place
The for
template(s) will be evaluated when an entity changes as specified.
Use quotes around your values for from
and to
to avoid the YAML parser from interpreting values as booleans.
Sun trigger
Sunset / Sunrise trigger
Fires when the sun is setting or rising, i.e., when the sun elevation reaches 0°.
An optional time offset can be given to have it fire a set time before or after the sun event (e.g., 45 minutes before sunset). A negative value makes it fire before sunrise or sunset, a positive value afterwards. The offset needs to be specified in number of seconds, or in a hh:mm:ss format.
Since the duration of twilight is different throughout the year, it is recommended to use sun elevation triggers instead of sunset
or sunrise
with a time offset to trigger automations during dusk or dawn.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: sun
# Possible values: sunset, sunrise
event: sunset
# Optional time offset. This example will trigger 45 minutes before sunset.
offset: "-00:45:00"
Sun elevation trigger
Sometimes you may want more granular control over an automation than simply sunset or sunrise and specify an exact elevation of the sun. This can be used to layer automations to occur as the sun lowers on the horizon or even after it is below the horizon. This is also useful when the “sunset” event is not dark enough outside and you would like the automation to run later at a precise solar angle instead of the time offset such as turning on exterior lighting. For most automations intended to run during dusk or dawn, a number between 0° and -6° is suitable; -4° is used in this example:
automation:
- alias: "Exterior Lighting on when dark outside"
triggers:
- trigger: numeric_state
entity_id: sun.sun
attribute: elevation
# Can be a positive or negative number
below: -4.0
actions:
- action: switch.turn_on
target:
entity_id: switch.exterior_lighting
If you want to get more precise, you can use this solar calculator
Although the actual amount of light depends on weather, topography and land cover, they are defined as:
-
Civil twilight: 0° > Solar angle > -6°
This is what is meant by twilight for the average person: Under clear weather conditions, civil twilight approximates the limit at which solar illumination suffices for the human eye to clearly distinguish terrestrial objects. Enough illumination renders artificial sources unnecessary for most outdoor activities.
-
Nautical twilight: -6° > Solar angle > -12°
-
Astronomical twilight: -12° > Solar angle > -18°
A very thorough explanation of this is available in the Wikipedia article about the Twilight
Tag trigger
Fires when a tag is scanned. For example, a NFC tag is scanned using the Home Assistant Companion mobile application.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: tag
tag_id: A7-6B-90-5F
Additionally, you can also only trigger if a card is scanned by a specific
device/scanner by setting the device_id
:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: tag
tag_id: A7-6B-90-5F
device_id: 0e19cd3cf2b311ea88f469a7512c307d
Or trigger on multiple possible devices for multiple tags:
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: tag
tag_id:
- "A7-6B-90-5F"
- "A7-6B-15-AC"
device_id:
- 0e19cd3cf2b311ea88f469a7512c307d
- d0609cb25f4a13922bb27d8f86e4c821
Template trigger
Template triggers work by evaluating a template when any of the recognized entities change state. The trigger will fire if the state change caused the template to render ‘true’ (a non-zero number or any of the strings true
, yes
, on
, enable
) when it was previously ‘false’ (anything else).
This is achieved by having the template result in a true boolean expression (for example {{ is_state('device_tracker.paulus', 'home') }}
) or by having the template render true
(example below).
With template triggers you can also evaluate attribute changes by using is_state_attr (like {{ is_state_attr('climate.living_room', 'away_mode', 'off') }}
)
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: template
value_template: "{% if is_state('device_tracker.paulus', 'home') %}true{% endif %}"
# If given, will trigger when template remains true for X time.
for: "00:01:00"
You can also use templates in the for
option.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: template
value_template: "{{ is_state('device_tracker.paulus', 'home') }}"
for:
minutes: "{{ states('input_number.minutes')|int(0) }}"
The for
template(s) will be evaluated when the value_template
becomes ‘true’.
Templates that do not contain an entity will be rendered once per minute.
Use of the for
option will not survive Home Assistant restart or the reload of automations. During restart or reload, automations that were awaiting for
the trigger to pass, are reset.
If for your use case this is undesired, you could consider using the automation to set an input_datetime
to the desired time and then use that input_datetime
as an automation trigger to perform the desired actions at the set time.
Time trigger
The time trigger is configured to fire once a day at a specific time, or at a specific time on a specific date. There are three allowed formats:
Time string
A string that represents a time to fire on each day. Can be specified as HH:MM
or HH:MM:SS
. If the seconds are not specified, :00
will be used.
automation:
- triggers:
- trigger: time
# Military time format. This trigger will fire at 3:32 PM
at: "15:32:00"
Input datetime
The entity ID of an input datetime.
has_date | has_time | Description |
---|---|---|
true |
true |
Will fire at specified date & time. |
true |
false |
Will fire at midnight on specified date. |
false |
true |
Will fire once a day at specified time. |
automation:
- triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.motion
to: "on"
actions:
- action: climate.turn_on
target:
entity_id: climate.office
- action: input_datetime.set_datetime
target:
entity_id: input_datetime.turn_off_ac
data:
datetime: >
{{ (now().timestamp() + 2*60*60)
| timestamp_custom('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') }}
- triggers:
- trigger: time
at: input_datetime.turn_off_ac
actions:
- action: climate.turn_off
target:
entity_id: climate.office
Sensors of datetime device class
The Entity ID of a sensor with the “timestamp” device class.
automation:
- triggers:
- trigger: time
at: sensor.phone_next_alarm
actions:
- action: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.bedroom
Sensors of datetime device class with offsets
When the time is provided using a sensor of the timestamp device class, an offset can be provided. This offset will be added to (or subtracted from when negative) the sensor value.
For example, this trigger fires 5 minutes before the phone alarm goes off.
automation:
- triggers:
- trigger: time
at:
entity_id: sensor.phone_next_alarm
offset: -00:05:00
actions:
- action: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.bedroom
When using a positive offset the trigger might never fire. This is due to the sensor changing before the offset is reached. For example, when using a phone alarm as a trigger, the sensor value will change to the new alarm time when the alarm goes off, which means this trigger will change to the new time as well.
Multiple times
Multiple times can be provided in a list. All formats can be intermixed.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: time
at:
- input_datetime.leave_for_work
- "18:30:00"
- entity_id: sensor.bus_arrival
offset: "-00:10:00"
Limited templates
It’s also possible to use limited templates for times.
blueprint:
input:
alarm:
name: Alarm
selector:
text:
hour:
name: Hour
selector:
number:
min: 0
max: 24
trigger_variables:
my_alarm: !input alarm
my_hour: !input hour
trigger:
- platform: time
at:
- "sensor._time"
- ":30:00"
Time pattern trigger
With the time pattern trigger, you can match if the hour, minute or second of the current time matches a specific value. You can prefix the value with a /
to match whenever the value is divisible by that number. You can specify *
to match any value (when using the web interface this is required, the fields cannot be left empty).
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: time_pattern
# Matches every hour at 5 minutes past whole
minutes: 5
automation 2:
triggers:
- trigger: time_pattern
# Trigger once per minute during the hour of 3
hours: "3"
minutes: "*"
automation 3:
triggers:
- trigger: time_pattern
# You can also match on interval. This will match every 5 minutes
minutes: "/5"
Do not prefix numbers with a zero - using '01'
instead of '1'
for example will result in errors.
Persistent notification trigger
Persistent notification triggers are fired when a persistent_notification
is added
or removed
that matches the configuration options.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: persistent_notification
update_type:
- added
- removed
notification_id: invalid_config
See the Persistent Notification integration for more details on event triggers and the additional event data available for use by an automation.
Webhook trigger
Webhook trigger fires when a web request is made to the webhook endpoint: /api/webhook/<webhook_id>
. The webhook endpoint is created automatically when you set it as the webhook_id
in an automation trigger.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: webhook
webhook_id: "some_hook_id"
allowed_methods:
- POST
- PUT
local_only: true
You can run this automation by sending an HTTP POST request to http://your-home-assistant:8123/api/webhook/some_hook_id
. Here is an example using the curl command line program, with an example form data payload:
curl -X POST -d 'key=value&key2=value2' https://your-home-assistant:8123/api/webhook/some_hook_id
Webhooks support HTTP POST, PUT, HEAD, and GET requests; PUT requests are recommended. HTTP GET and HEAD requests are not enabled by default but can be enabled by adding them to the allowed_methods
option. The request methods can also be configured in the UI by clicking the settings gear menu button beside the Webhook ID.
By default, webhook triggers can only be accessed from devices on the same network as Home Assistant or via Nabu Casa Cloud webhookslocal_only
option should be set to false
to allow webhooks to be triggered directly via the internet. This option can also be configured in the UI by clicking the settings gear menu button beside the Webhook ID.
Remember to use an HTTPS URL if you’ve secured your Home Assistant installation with SSL/TLS.
Note that a given webhook can only be used in one automation at a time. That is, only one automation trigger can use a specific webhook ID.
Webhook data
Payloads may either be encoded as form data or JSON. Depending on that, its data will be available in an automation template as either trigger.data
or trigger.json
. URL query parameters are also available in the template as trigger.query
.
Note that to use JSON encoded payloads, the Content-Type
header must be set to application/json
, e.g.:
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{ "key": "value" }' https://your-home-assistant:8123/api/webhook/some_hook_id
Webhook security
Webhook endpoints don’t require authentication, other than knowing a valid webhook ID. Security best practices for webhooks include:
- Do not use webhooks to trigger automations that are destructive, or that can create safety issues. For example, do not use a webhook to unlock a lock, or open a garage door.
- Treat a webhook ID like a password: use a unique, non-guessable value, and keep it secret.
- Do not copy-and-paste webhook IDs from public sources, including blueprints. Always create your own.
- Keep the
local_only
option enabled for webhooks if access from the internet is not required.
Zone trigger
Zone trigger fires when an entity is entering or leaving the zone. The entity can be either a person, or a device_tracker. For zone automation to work, you need to have setup a device tracker platform that supports reporting GPS coordinates. This includes GPS Logger, the OwnTracks platform and the iCloud platform.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: zone
entity_id: person.paulus
zone: zone.home
# Event is either enter or leave
event: enter # or "leave"
Geolocation trigger
Geolocation trigger fires when an entity is appearing in or disappearing from a zone. Entities that are created by a Geolocation platform support reporting GPS coordinates.
Because entities are generated and removed by these platforms automatically, the entity ID normally cannot be predicted. Instead, this trigger requires the definition of a source
, which is directly linked to one of the Geolocation platforms.
This isn’t for use with device_tracker
entities. For those look above at the zone
trigger.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: geo_location
source: nsw_rural_fire_service_feed
zone: zone.bushfire_alert_zone
# Event is either enter or leave
event: enter # or "leave"
Device triggers
Device triggers encompass a set of events that are defined by an integration. This includes, for example, state changes of sensors as well as button events from remotes. MQTT device triggers are set up through autodiscovery.
In contrast to state triggers, device triggers are tied to a device and not necessarily an entity. To use a device trigger, set up an automation through the browser frontend. If you would like to use a device trigger for an automation that is not managed through the browser frontend, you can copy the YAML from the trigger widget in the frontend and paste it into your automation’s trigger list.
Calendar trigger
Calendar trigger fires when a Calendar event starts or ends, allowing for much more flexible automations than using the Calendar entity state which only supports a single event start at a time.
An optional time offset can be given to have it fire a set time before or after the calendar event (e.g., 5 minutes before event start).
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: calendar
# Possible values: start, end
event: start
# The calendar entity_id
entity_id: calendar.light_schedule
# Optional time offset
offset: "-00:05:00"
See the Calendar integration for more details on event triggers and the additional event data available for use by an automation.
Sentence trigger
A sentence trigger fires when Assist matches a sentence from a voice assistant using the default conversation agent. Sentence triggers only work with Home Assistant Assist. External conversation agents such as OpenAI or Google Generative AI cannot be used to trigger automations.
Sentences are allowed to use some basic template syntax like optional and alternative words. For example, [it's ]party time
will match both “party time” and “it’s party time”.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: conversation
command:
- "[it's ]party time"
- "happy (new year|birthday)"
The sentences matched by this trigger will be:
- party time
- it’s party time
- happy new year
- happy birthday
Punctuation and casing are ignored, so “It’s PARTY TIME!!!” will also match.
Related topic
Sentence wildcards
Adding one or more {lists}
to your trigger sentences will capture any text at that point in the sentence. A slots
object will be available in the trigger data.
This allows you to match sentences with variable parts, such as album/artist names or a description of a picture.
For example, the sentence play {album} by {artist}
will match “play the white album by the beatles” and have the following variables available in the action templates:
-
{{ trigger.slots.album }}
- “the white album” -
{{ trigger.slots.artist }}
- “the beatles”
Wildcards will match as much text as possible, which may lead to surprises: “play day by day by taken by trees” will match album
as “day” and artist
as “day by taken by trees”.
Including extra words in your template can help: play {album} by artist {artist}
can now correctly match “play day by day by artist taken by trees”.
Multiple triggers
It is possible to specify multiple triggers for the same rule. To do so just prefix the first line of each trigger with a dash (-) and indent the next lines accordingly. Whenever one of the triggers fires, processing of your automation rule begins.
automation:
triggers:
# first trigger
- trigger: time_pattern
minutes: 5
# our second trigger is the sunset
- trigger: sun
event: sunset
Multiple entity IDs for the same trigger
It is possible to specify multiple entities for the same trigger. To do so add multiple entities using a nested list. The trigger will fire and start, processing your automation each time the trigger is true for any entity listed.
automation:
triggers:
- trigger: state
entity_id:
- sensor.one
- sensor.two
- sensor.three
Disabling a trigger
Every individual trigger in an automation can be disabled, without removing it.
To do so, add enabled: false
to the trigger. For example:
# Example script with a disabled trigger
automation:
triggers:
# This trigger will not trigger, as it is disabled.
# This automation does not run when the sun is set.
- enabled: false
trigger: sun
event: sunset
# This trigger will fire, as it is not disabled.
- trigger: time
at: "15:32:00"
Triggers can also be disabled based on limited templates or blueprint inputs. These are only evaluated once when the automation is loaded.
blueprint:
input:
input_boolean:
name: Boolean
selector:
boolean:
input_number:
name: Number
selector:
number:
min: 0
max: 100
trigger_variables:
_enable_number: !input input_number
triggers:
- trigger: sun
event_type: sunrise
enabled: !input input_boolean
- trigger: sun
event_type: sunset
enabled: "{{ _enable_number < 50 }}"
Merging lists of triggers
This feature requires Home Assistant version 2024.10 or later. If using this in a blueprint, set the min_version
for the blueprint to at least this version.
In some advanced cases (like for blueprints with trigger selectors), it may be necessary to insert a second list of triggers into the main trigger list. This can be done by adding a dictionary in the main trigger list with the sole key triggers
, and the value for that key contains a second list of triggers. These will then be flattened into a single list of triggers. For example:
blueprint:
name: Nested Trigger Blueprint
domain: automation
input:
usertrigger:
selector:
trigger:
triggers:
- trigger: event
event_type: manual_event
- triggers: !input usertrigger
This blueprint automation can then be triggered either by the fixed manual_event trigger, or additionally by any triggers selected in the trigger selector. This is also applicable for wait_for_trigger
action.