Ha Api

What it does

This skill provides guidance and assistance for integrating with the Home Assistant REST and WebSocket APIs. It helps prevent common errors encountered during API integration, such as authentication issues, incorrect state formatting, and improper error handling. By leveraging this skill, users can save time and reduce token usage compared to manual API discovery and implementation.

When to use it

• When building external integrations with your Home Assistant instance.
• When needing to manage the state of devices within Home Assistant programmatically.
• For real-time communication and event subscriptions via the WebSocket API.
• To troubleshoot issues related to authentication, data formatting or service calls in Home Assistant.
• When aiming for efficient token usage when interacting with the Home Assistant API.

Key capabilities

• Prevents 5+ common Home Assistant API integration errors (authentication, WebSocket lifecycle, state format, error handling, service call domain/service mismatch).
• Reduces token overhead by approximately 30% compared to manual discovery.
• Speeds up setup time from 15-20 minutes (manual) to 2-5 minutes.
• Provides guidance on authentication using Long-Lived Access Tokens.
• Offers a quick start guide for testing REST API connectivity.

Example prompts

• "How do I authenticate with the Home Assistant API?"
• "What is the correct format for state data when making an API request?"
• "Explain how to handle WebSocket lifecycle management in Home Assistant."
• “What are common errors when calling a service via the REST API?”

Tips & gotchas

• You'll need to create a Long-Lived Access Token within your Home Assistant UI and securely store it.
• Ensure you prefix Bearer tokens with "Bearer " in the Authorization header.
• Understand the difference between using the REST API (for one-time requests) versus the WebSocket API (for real-time events).