home-assistant-best-practices

Best practices for HA automations, helpers, scripts, device controls, and dashboards. TRIGGER THIS SKILL WHEN: - Creating/editing automations, scripts, scenes, or dashboards - Choosing between template sensors and built-in helpers - Writing or restructuring triggers, conditions, or automation modes - Setting up Zigbee button/remote automations (ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT) - Renaming entities or migrating device_id to entity_id - Configuring dashboard cards or picking helpers to feed them - Looking up card types or domain-specific documentation SYMPTOMS: - Agent uses Jinja2 templates where native conditions/triggers/helpers exist - Agent uses device_id instead of entity_id - Agent modifies entity IDs without checking consumers - Agent chooses wrong automation mode (e.g., single for motion lights) - Agent hard-codes values or picks raw sensor over derived helper - Agent edits `.storage/` files, writes raw YAML, or generates YAML snippets - Agent tells user to edit configuration.yaml for UI-configured integrations