home-assistant-best-practices

Best practices for HA automations, helpers, scripts, controls, and dashboards. TRIGGER THIS SKILL WHEN: - Creating or editing automations, scripts, scenes, or dashboards - Choosing between template sensors and built-in helpers - Restructuring triggers, conditions, or automation modes - Setting up Zigbee button/remote automations - Renaming entities or migrating device_id to entity_id - Configuring dashboard cards or selecting helpers - Looking up card types or domain docs - Writing or reviewing AppDaemon apps SYMPTOMS: - Agent uses Jinja2 templates where native options exist - Agent uses device_id instead of entity_id - Agent changes entity IDs without checking consumers - Wrong automation mode - Agent hard-codes values or uses raw sensor over helper - Agent edits .storage, writes YAML, or generates YAML snippets - Agent tells user to edit configuration.yaml for UI integrations