home-assistant-bridge-python_skill

Overview

This skill provides a Python-based bridge to control a Home Assistant instance through its REST API. It lets you turn devices on/off, adjust lights and climate, read sensor states and history, manage aliases, and trigger automations or scenes from the command line. It requires a running Home Assistant, a long-lived token, and network access.

How this skill works

The bridge communicates with Home Assistant via HTTPS using your URL and long-lived access token stored in a local config file. Commands are issued through ha-bridge.py which maps friendly aliases to entity IDs, calls the appropriate HA services, and can optionally verify state after a short delay. It also exposes search, state readout, history queries, and a service list for exploration.

When to use it

• Quickly toggle or verify device state from a script or SSH session
• Adjust lights (brightness, color, color temperature) without opening the UI
• Change thermostat setpoints or modes from automation scripts
• Query sensor states or fetch 24–48 hour history for debugging
• Trigger scenes or services as part of custom workflows

Best practices

• Create and maintain aliases.json to use human-friendly names instead of entity IDs
• Store HA_URL and HA_TOKEN in the local config produced by the setup script and restrict token scope
• Use --verify for critical on/off actions because HA state updates can lag 1–3 seconds
• Test commands with search and state queries before adding them to automations
• Run the setup script once and source the generated config in automation scripts or your shell

Example use cases

• Turn kitchen lights on during evening via SSH: python3 ha-bridge.py on kitchen --verify
• Set bedroom lights to a specific RGB value for movie mode: python3 ha-bridge.py light bedroom --rgb "255,200,100"
• Lower thermostat before bedtime: python3 ha-bridge.py climate thermostat --temperature 19
• Fetch last 48 hours of temperature history for a sensor: python3 ha-bridge.py history sensor.temp_sensor --hours 48
• Find an entity by name before creating an alias: python3 ha-bridge.py search temp --domain sensor