Glossary

Scope: the terms, collected in one place. Chapter references point at the fullest explanation.

Action — what an automation does when its trigger fires and its conditions pass: one or more service calls. Chapter 5.

Add-on — an extra program the Supervisor can install and manage beside Core (editor, broker, tools). Exists only on the OS and Supervised shapes. Chapter 2.

Attributes — the fine print beside an entity's state: brightness beside on, target temperature beside heat. Chapter 1.

Automation — a rule of the form trigger → condition → action, run by the hub when the world changes. Chapter 5.

Card — the unit of dashboard layout: one rendering of one or more entities — a list, a graph, a dimmer. Chapter 6.

Condition — the gate an automation checks at trigger time; if it fails, the automation quietly does nothing. Chapter 5.

Configuration directory — the folder holding everything the installation is: configuration, .storage, database, backups. Chapter 3.

configuration.yaml — the front-door settings file in the configuration directory; where a Core install begins. Chapter 3.

Coordinator — the USB radio (Zigbee, Z-Wave) bridging a device mesh to the hub. Chapter 4.

Core — two senses, kept apart by context: the Home Assistant program itself, and the install shape that is only the program, in a Python venv. Chapters 2, 3.

Dashboard (Lovelace) — the web interface's arranged views, built of cards. Named Lovelace in the project's own vocabulary. Chapter 6.

Device — one physical or logical thing an integration reports; becomes several entities. Chapter 4.

Entity — anything the hub knows about, with an ID (domain.name) and a state. The atom of the whole system. Chapter 1.

Event — a noticed change, posted to the event bus; what automations listen to. Chapter 1.

Helper — an entity that exists only to hold a chosen state (input_boolean, input_number, ...): the house's own variables. Chapters 4, 5.

Integration — the software translator for one system, brand, or protocol. Chapter 4.

IoT class — an integration's declared habit: local push, local polling, cloud push, cloud polling. The line to read before buying hardware. Chapter 4.

Logbook / History — the recorded stream of past states; the house's diary. Chapters 1, 8.

Onboarding — the first-run flow: owner account, naming the home, placing it on the map. Chapter 3.

Scene — a saved snapshot of entity states, applied in one call. Chapter 5.

Script — a named sequence of actions, run when called rather than when triggered. Chapter 5.

Service — a verb the system can perform on entities: light.turn_on, backup.create. Chapter 5.

State — an entity's current value: on, 21.4, home. Chapter 1.

Supervisor — the management layer above Core on the OS and Supervised shapes: add-ons, whole-stack updates. Chapter 2.

Template — a small live expression ({{ ... }}) evaluated by the system; also a family of entities defined by such expressions, like the specimen's porch light. Chapter 5.

Trigger — the happening an automation waits for: an event, a time, a threshold crossed. Chapter 5.

Virtual environment (venv) — a private folder of Python libraries, so a program's dependencies stay its own. Chapter 3.