Home Assistant

Home Assistant over its REST API (/api/states, /api/services, one /api/template render for areas), with a long-lived access token. Three palettes: the entities, the services, the areas.

Palettes

Home Assistant (entities) is live: every entity of the domains setting, listed again whenever the panel shows, so a light's state at the root is the current one and kitchen light finds it from the root. Favourites come first in their order, then the domains in the setting's order, names sorted within. A row is the friendly name; the subtitle is the domain and the area (when the entity has one); the entity id, domain and area are keywords; the accessories are the state (a coloured tag for on, off, open, locked, playing and the other known states, the value with its unit otherwise) and when it last changed. The icon is the domain's glyph; a light that is on is a dot in its colour (rgb_color, else warm white). The filter dropdown scopes it: All entities (the domains setting), Every domain, then Lights, Switches, Sensors, Binary sensors, Climate, Media players, People, Scripts, Automations, Scenes. The detail pane (lazy, asked when the cursor rests) shows the entity, its state, when it changed and its first attributes.

Home Assistant Services (services) is every service from /api/services, by domain then name, the id (light.turn_on) as an accessory and a keyword, HA's name and description when it gives them. enter opens a form: the target as a select of the entities the service takes (no field for a service without a target), then the service's fields from its description (a select selector is a select, a boolean one a checkbox, the rest text with the example as placeholder and a number's range in the help line). The submit calls the service with the values coerced by selector and toasts what changed; a number field that is not one comes back on the form. Listed once an hour.

Home Assistant Areas (areas) is every area that has an entity, with the count; enter lists those entities. Listed once an hour.

Keyboard

The first action of a row is enter, the second cmd+enter; cmd+k has them all. By domain on an entity row:

On every entity row:

On a service row: enter Call (the form, then the call), cmd+c Copy service id. On an area row: enter Show entities.

A service call keeps the panel open and lists again, so the row shows the new state, with a toast naming it; a call that fails is a failure toast with HA's answer. Entity ids are the row ids, so an item hotkey toggles one entity without showing pal:

[palettes.home-assistant-entities.item_hotkeys]
"light.kitchen" = "ctrl+alt+k"

Setup

In Home Assistant, your profile, Security, create a long-lived access token. In pal, Settings, Extensions, Home Assistant: the URL with its scheme (http://homeassistant.local:8123) and the token, which the config file keeps as a keychain: or env: reference, never the value.

Settings, [extensions.home-assistant]:

When something is wrong every palette is one inert hint row that says what and where to fix it: no URL, a URL without a scheme, no token, a keychain: or env: token that did not resolve, a rejected token (401), a host that did not answer within the timeout, or one that could not be reached. A URL that redirects (an http:// one behind a proxy answering 301 to https://) is followed with the token kept, and the log says which URL to set. An HA that refuses the template API leaves the rows without areas and the Areas palette with a hint row.

Needs the network: every request goes to the URL you set, nothing else.

What it does not do

• No WebSocket: states are read on each show, not pushed, so a change made elsewhere shows on the next show or cmd+r.
• No entity editing, no dashboards, no history graphs: cmd+o opens the right page in Home Assistant for those.
• No arbitrary brightness or volume: the presets are the five steps; the service form (light.turn_on with brightness_pct) takes any value.
• A collapsed group in a service's description (HA's "advanced" section) is left out of the form.

Platforms

macOS and Linux, the same on both: everything is HTTP.