Automating Home Assistant

An automationAutomations in Home Assistant allow you to automatically respond to things that happen in and around your home. [Learn more] makes your home react on its own when something happens, for example, turning on the lights at sunset or pausing the music when you receive a call. You create automations in the automation editor, by choosing from your devicesA device is a model representing a physical or logical unit that contains entities. and entitiesAn 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]. No coding is required.

Getting started

• To create your first automation step by step, follow the tutorial Create your first automation.
• To learn what an automation is made of, refer to Understanding automations.
• To use an automation that someone else has already made, refer to Using automation blueprints.

Learning more

• How automations react to changes: why an automation starts when something happens, not while something is true.
• Which tool to use: when to use an automation, a script, a scene, a blueprint, or a helper.

What you can use in an automation

To look up what you can use in an automation, use the following references:

• All triggers: every trigger, grouped by integration.
• All conditions: every condition, grouped by integration.
• All actions: every action, grouped by integration.
• All building blocks: the steps that control the flow of actions, such as waiting, choosing, and repeating.
• Targets: which entities a trigger, condition, or action covers when you select an area, floor, label, or device.
• Trigger data in templates: the data that each trigger passes to your templates.

Setting up an automation

To create and adjust your automations, refer to the following pages:

• Automation editors: how to create and edit automations.
• Automation modes: what happens when an automation starts while it’s still running.
• Automations in YAML: the full YAML structure, and the options that are only available in YAML.

Scripts, scenes, and blueprints

Automations often work together with scripts, scenes, and blueprints:

• Scripts: a saved list of steps that runs when you start it, for example, from an automation or a dashboard.
• Scenes: set a group of devices to saved states in one step.
• Blueprints: ready-made automations and scripts that you install and adjust for your own home.

When something doesn’t work

• Testing automations: run an automation or a single step, and read its trace.
• Troubleshooting automations: find the cause of common problems by symptom.