Control Home Assistant with AI

Hass-MCP

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Home Assistant integration with Claude and other LLMs.

Overview

Hass-MCP enables AI assistants like Claude to interact directly with your Home Assistant instance, allowing them to:

• Query the state of devices and sensors
• Control lights, switches, and other entities
• Get summaries of your smart home
• Troubleshoot automations and entities
• Search for specific entities
• Create guided conversations for common tasks

Screenshots

Features

• Entity Management: Get states, control devices, and search for entities
• Domain Summaries: Get high-level information about entity types
• Automation Support: List and control automations
• Guided Conversations: Use prompts for common tasks like creating automations
• Smart Search: Find entities by name, type, or state
• Live Dashboard Editing: Read and edit Lovelace dashboards (cards and views) over Home Assistant's WebSocket API - changes appear instantly in open browsers, with automatic backups and a dry-run preview
• Token Efficiency: Lean JSON responses to minimize token usage

Installation

Prerequisites

• Home Assistant instance with Long-Lived Access Token
• One of the following:
  • Docker (recommended)
  • Python 3.13+ and uv

Setting Up With Claude Desktop

Docker Installation (Recommended)

1. Pull the Docker image:

   docker pull voska/hass-mcp:latest
   

2. Add the MCP server to Claude Desktop:

   a. Open Claude Desktop and go to Settings b. Navigate to Developer > Edit Config c. Add the following configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json file:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "hass-mcp": {
         "command": "docker",
         "args": [
           "run",
           "-i",
           "--rm",
           "-e",
           "HA_URL",
           "-e",
           "HA_TOKEN",
           "voska/hass-mcp"
         ],
         "env": {
           "HA_URL": "http://homeassistant.local:8123",
           "HA_TOKEN": "YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN"
         }
       }
     }
   }
   

   d. Replace YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN with your actual Home Assistant long-lived access token e. Update the HA_URL:

   • If running Home Assistant on the same machine: use http://host.docker.internal:8123 (Docker Desktop on Mac/Windows)
   • If running Home Assistant on another machine: use the actual IP or hostname

   f. Save the file and restart Claude Desktop

3. The "Hass-MCP" tool should now appear in your Claude Desktop tools menu

Note: If you're running Home Assistant in Docker on the same machine, you may need to add --network host to the Docker args for the container to access Home Assistant. Alternatively, use the IP address of your machine instead of host.docker.internal.

uv/uvx

1. Install uv on your system.

2. Add the MCP server to Claude Desktop:

   a. Open Claude Desktop and go to Settings b. Navigate to Developer > Edit Config c. Add the following configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json file:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "hass-mcp": {
         "command": "uvx",
         "args": ["hass-mcp"],
         "env": {
           "HA_URL": "http://homeassistant.local:8123",
           "HA_TOKEN": "YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN"
         }
       }
     }
   }
   

   d. Replace YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN with your actual Home Assistant long-lived access token e. Update the HA_URL:

   • If running Home Assistant on the same machine: use http://host.docker.internal:8123 (Docker Desktop on Mac/Windows)
   • If running Home Assistant on another machine: use the actual IP or hostname

   f. Save the file and restart Claude Desktop

3. The "Hass-MCP" tool should now appear in your Claude Desktop tools menu

Other MCP Clients

Cursor

1. Go to Cursor Settings > MCP > Add New MCP Server
2. Fill in the form:
   • Name: Hass-MCP
   • Type: command
   • Command:

     docker run -i --rm -e HA_URL=http://homeassistant.local:8123 -e HA_TOKEN=YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN voska/hass-mcp
     

   • Replace YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN with your actual Home Assistant token
   • Update the HA_URL to match your Home Assistant instance address
3. Click "Add" to save

Claude Code (CLI)

To use with Claude Code CLI, you can add the MCP server directly using the mcp add command:

Using Docker (recommended):

claude mcp add hass-mcp -e HA_URL=http://homeassistant.local:8123 -e HA_TOKEN=YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN -- docker run -i --rm -e HA_URL -e HA_TOKEN voska/hass-mcp

Replace YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN with your actual Home Assistant token and update the HA_URL to match your Home Assistant instance address.

HTTP Transport (Streamable)

For deployments that can't use stdio - running behind an MCP gateway, hosting on Smithery, sharing one server across multiple clients, or connecting from network-based tools like LibreChat or OpenWebUI - Hass-MCP supports the MCP streamable HTTP transport. The server runs in stateless mode (no Mcp-Session-Id, JSON responses), suitable for horizontally-scaled hosts.

Running locally

Using uvx:

HA_URL=http://homeassistant.local:8123 \
HA_TOKEN=YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN \
uvx hass-mcp --http --port 8000

The server binds 127.0.0.1 by default. Override with --host 0.0.0.0 only when you've also configured auth in front of it.

Running in Docker

docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 \
  -e HA_URL=http://homeassistant.local:8123 \
  -e HA_TOKEN=YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN \
  voska/hass-mcp:latest --http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

--host 0.0.0.0 is required inside Docker so the port is reachable through the bridge. Bind the publish (-p) to 127.0.0.1:8000:8000 if you only want it reachable from the host, or put a reverse proxy in front.

Endpoint

The MCP endpoint is at /mcp. Point your client at http://<host>:<port>/mcp.

Smithery / PaaS

The server honors the PORT environment variable (Smithery's convention) in addition to MCP_PORT. Smithery deployment requires --http mode and reads PORT automatically.

Custom / private CA

If your Home Assistant instance serves a certificate signed by your own CA (step-ca, smallstep, homelab OpenSSL), hass-mcp can verify it without disabling TLS:

• Locally: install the CA root in your OS trust store (macOS Keychain, Windows Cert Store, or update-ca-certificates on Linux). hass-mcp picks it up automatically via truststore.
• In Docker (or any sandboxed runtime): bind-mount the CA file and point SSL_CERT_FILE at it.

docker run --rm \
  -v /path/to/your-ca.crt:/etc/ssl/certs/your-ca.crt:ro \
  -e SSL_CERT_FILE=/etc/ssl/certs/your-ca.crt \
  -e HA_URL=https://homeassistant.example.internal:8123 \
  -e HA_TOKEN=YOUR_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN \
  voska/hass-mcp:latest

SSL_CERT_FILE always takes precedence over the OS store when set. verify=False is intentionally not supported - use HA_URL=http://... if you genuinely want unencrypted local LAN traffic.

Usage Examples

Here are some examples of prompts you can use with Claude once Hass-MCP is set up:

• "What's the current state of my living room lights?"
• "Turn off all the lights in the kitchen"
• "What's the temperature in the master bedroom?"
• "List everything in the guest room"
• "List all my sensors that contain temperature data"
• "Give me a summary of my climate entities"
• "Create an automation that turns on the lights at sunset"
• "Help me troubleshoot why my bedroom motion sensor automation isn't working"
• "Search for entities related to my living room"
• "Show me the last 50 ERROR lines from the Home Assistant log"
• "What's been failing on the mqtt integration today?"
• "Show me power usage by day for the last month"
• "What happened with the front door sensor last Tuesday?"

Available Tools

Hass-MCP provides several tools for interacting with Home Assistant:

• get_version: Get the Home Assistant version
• get_entity: Get the state of a specific entity with optional field filtering
• entity_action: Perform actions on entities (turn on, off, toggle)
• list_entities: Get a list of entities with optional domain filtering and search
• search_entities_tool: Search for entities matching a query
• domain_summary_tool: Get a summary of a domain's entities
• list_automations: Get a list of all automations
• call_service_tool: Call any Home Assistant service
• restart_ha: Restart Home Assistant
• get_history: Get the state history of an entity (last N hours)
• get_history_range: Get state-change history for an entity over an explicit date/time range (start_time / end_time, ISO-8601)
• get_statistics: Get long-term aggregated statistics (mean / min / max per bucket) for an entity over the last N hours - works for data older than the recorder's short-term retention window
• get_statistics_range: Same, but for an explicit date/time range - useful for monthly / yearly trend queries
• get_error_log: Get the Home Assistant error log, with optional level / integration / search_term / lines filters applied server-side so noisy logs don't blow Claude's context
• get_entities_by_area: List entities in a specific area / room

Dashboard (Lovelace) Editing

Read and live-edit dashboards over Home Assistant's WebSocket API. Saving pushes the change to every open browser instantly - no restart.

• list_dashboards: List dashboards (the default plus any user dashboards), each with its url_path and mode (storage / yaml)
• get_dashboard_config: Get a dashboard's full config
• set_dashboard_config: Replace a dashboard's full config (low-level)
• add_card / update_card / remove_card / move_card: Edit cards within a view (the view is selected by index, or by its path / title)
• list_view_sections: List the sections of a "sections"-type view
• add_view / remove_view / update_view: Edit a dashboard's views
• list_dashboard_backups / restore_dashboard: List and roll back to the automatic pre-save backups

Sections views: Home Assistant's modern view type (type: sections) stores its cards inside sections rather than a single top-level list. For those views, call list_view_sections and pass the section argument (index, title, or heading) to the card tools. Card edits on a sections view without a section are rejected with the list of available sections - rather than silently saving a card where it would never render.

Every editing tool accepts dry_run=true to preview the resulting config and a change summary without saving.

Important notes:

• Admin token required. Saving Lovelace config requires the long-lived token to belong to an admin user.
• Storage-mode only. Only UI-managed ("storage") dashboards can be edited. YAML-mode dashboards are detected and rejected with a clear message - edit their YAML files directly instead.
• Whole-config writes. Home Assistant has no partial-edit API; every change is a read-modify-write of the entire dashboard. The high-level card/view tools handle this for you.
• Automatic backups. Before each write, the current config is saved to HASS_MCP_BACKUP_DIR (default ~/.hass-mcp/dashboard-backups/). When running in Docker, mount a volume at this path or backups are lost when the container is recreated.

Prompts for Guided Conversations

Hass-MCP includes several prompts for guided conversations:

• create_automation: Guide for creating Home Assistant automations based on trigger type
• debug_automation: Troubleshooting help for automations that aren't working
• troubleshoot_entity: Diagnose issues with entities
• routine_optimizer: Analyze usage patterns and suggest optimized routines based on actual behavior
• automation_health_check: Review all automations, find conflicts, redundancies, or improvement opportunities
• entity_naming_consistency: Audit entity names and suggest standardization improvements
• dashboard_layout_generator: Create optimized dashboards based on user preferences and usage patterns

Available Resources

Hass-MCP provides the following resource endpoints:

• hass://entities/{entity_id}: Get the state of a specific entity
• hass://entities/{entity_id}/detailed: Get detailed information about an entity with all attributes
• hass://entities: List all Home Assistant entities grouped by domain
• hass://entities/domain/{domain}: Get a list of entities for a specific domain
• hass://search/{query}/{limit}: Search for entities matching a query with custom result limit

Development

Running Tests

uv run pytest tests/