Home Assistant Automation

Authoring Home Assistant automations by hand means juggling trigger platforms, template syntax, and YAML indentation that the UI editor hides from you. This skill writes correct automation, script, scene, and Lovelace dashboard YAML the first time, and it tracks the breaking changes that move config keys around between HA releases. It is for people who edit automations.yaml and configuration.yaml directly, or who paste YAML into the automation editor's "Edit in YAML" mode.

When to use it

• You want a multi-step automation (trigger on motion, check sun elevation, fade lights, send a notification) and don't want to wire it together in the visual editor.
• A template sensor or trigger keeps throwing "expected dict for dictionary value" and you can't see why.
• You upgraded HA and an automation broke because a key was renamed (e.g. service: becoming action:, or the platform: trigger key migrating to trigger:).
• You're building a Lovelace view and need entities, grid, mushroom, or custom: cards laid out correctly.

How it works

It produces the real HA schema: triggers using platforms like state, numeric_state, time, time_pattern, template, mqtt, zone, and event. Conditions use and/or/not, state, numeric_state, and template. Actions call services with action: (or service: on older cores), support choose, repeat, wait_for_trigger, parallel, and variables. It writes Jinja2 templates with trigger.to_state.state, states('sensor.x'), is_state(), and now(), and knows where double braces vs {% %} blocks belong. Dashboard output targets Lovelace card schemas including conditional and vertical-stack cards.

Usage

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o ~/.claude/skills/home-assistant-automation/SKILL.md https://claudeskil.com/skills/home-assistant-automation/SKILL.md

> "When the front door opens after sunset, turn on the hallway light
   to 60% for 5 minutes, but only if nobody is already home."

- alias: Hallway light on door open after dark
  trigger:
    - trigger: state
      entity_id: binary_sensor.front_door
      to: "on"
  condition:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: group.family
      state: "not_home"
    - condition: sun
      after: sunset
  action:
    - action: light.turn_on
      target: { entity_id: light.hallway }
      data: { brightness_pct: 60 }
    - delay: "00:05:00"
    - action: light.turn_off
      target: { entity_id: light.hallway }
mode: restart

Tips & gotchas

• Use mode: restart (not the default single) for delay-based automations, or a re-trigger leaves the light stuck on.
• for: on a state trigger resets if any other tracked attribute changes; pin it with the state: and an explicit attribute: if needed.
• Quote "on"/"off"/"yes" — YAML otherwise parses them as booleans and the state comparison silently fails.
• numeric_state ignores non-numeric states like unavailable; guard with a template if a sensor drops out.

FAQ

Will edits here clash with the UI automation editor? No — the YAML it writes round-trips through the editor as long as you keep the id: field.

Does it handle Blueprints? Yes, it can author blueprint: input schemas and reference !input placeholders.

Which HA version does it assume? It targets current cores using trigger:/action: keys but will emit the legacy platform:/service: form on request for older installs.