Homeassistant CLI

Home Assistant CLI

Control your Home Assistant smart home devices using the official hass-cli tool — a feature-rich command-line interface with auto-completion, event monitoring, and flexible output formatting.

Why This Skill vs. homeassistant (curl-based)?

Choose homeassistant-cli if you want:

• ✅ Auto-completion for entity IDs and services (bash/zsh/fish)
• ✅ Event monitoring in real-time (hass-cli event watch)
• ✅ History queries (hass-cli state history)
• ✅ Better output formatting (table/YAML/JSON with one flag)
• ✅ Interactive exploration (easier to discover entities and services)
• ✅ Comprehensive documentation with examples and troubleshooting

Choose homeassistant (curl) if you want:

• ✅ Zero dependencies (curl + jq are pre-installed)
• ✅ Lightweight and fast
• ✅ Better for scripting and automation
• ✅ No Python requirements

Both work great — this skill is for users who interact frequently with Home Assistant and want a richer CLI experience.

Setup

Before using hass-cli, configure authentication:

1. Generate a long-lived access token in Home Assistant:

   • Navigate to your profile: https://your-homeassistant:8123/profile
   • Scroll to "Long-Lived Access Tokens"
   • Create a new token

2. Set environment variables (add to shell config for persistence):

   export HASS_SERVER=https://homeassistant.local:8123
   export HASS_TOKEN=<your-token>
   

3. Test connection:

   hass-cli info
   

Common Commands

List Entities

# List all entities
hass-cli state list

# Filter by domain
hass-cli state list light
hass-cli state list switch
hass-cli state list sensor

# Get specific entity state
hass-cli state get light.living_room

Control Devices

# Turn on/off lights
hass-cli service call light.turn_on --arguments entity_id=light.living_room
hass-cli service call light.turn_off --arguments entity_id=light.living_room

# Set brightness (0-255)
hass-cli service call light.turn_on --arguments entity_id=light.bedroom,brightness=128

# Turn on/off switches
hass-cli service call switch.turn_on --arguments entity_id=switch.fan
hass-cli service call switch.turn_off --arguments entity_id=switch.fan

# Toggle any device
hass-cli service call homeassistant.toggle --arguments entity_id=light.kitchen

List and Call Services

# List all services
hass-cli service list

# Filter services
hass-cli service list light
hass-cli service list 'home.*toggle'

# Get service details (YAML output)
hass-cli -o yaml service list homeassistant.toggle

Work with Scenes

# List scenes
hass-cli state list scene

# Activate a scene
hass-cli service call scene.turn_on --arguments entity_id=scene.movie_time

Monitor Events

# Watch all events
hass-cli event watch

# Watch specific event type
hass-cli event watch state_changed
hass-cli event watch automation_triggered

History

# Get state history (last 50 minutes)
hass-cli state history --since 50m light.living_room

# Multiple entities
hass-cli state history --since 1h light.living_room switch.fan

Output Formats

Control output with -o or --output:

# Table (default)
hass-cli state list

# YAML
hass-cli -o yaml state get light.living_room

# JSON
hass-cli -o json state list light

# No headers (for scripting)
hass-cli --no-headers state list

Tips

• Entity discovery: Use hass-cli state list to find entity IDs
• Service discovery: Use hass-cli service list to find available services
• Auto-completion: See references/autocomplete.md for shell setup
• Troubleshooting: See references/troubleshooting.md

Examples

See references/examples.md for common automation patterns and use cases.