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Home Assistant blueprints let you reuse the logic of an automation, script, or template entity while choosing different devices and settings for each use. Instead of maintaining several near-identical automations, you can configure one blueprint multiple times with home-specific inputs.
What a Home Assistant blueprint changes
A blueprint is a reusable configuration template. Its author defines the shared logic and the inputs that someone setting it up can choose—for example, which motion sensor to watch or which light to control. Each automation created from the blueprint can use different input values while drawing on the same blueprint definition. See Home Assistant’s blueprint overview.
This is useful when several rooms or devices need the same behavior but not the same entities. It reduces duplicated configuration; it does not automatically make every automation a blueprint. Home Assistant’s guide recommends that beginners start with blueprint automations, while ordinary automations remain appropriate when the logic is unique or needs direct editing (Automating Home Assistant).
Import and configure a community blueprint
Home Assistant supports importing blueprints from sources such as its community forum, GitHub, and GitHub Gists. The fields you see depend on the blueprint’s author and may include required or optional inputs.
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- Find a blueprint for the behavior you want. Read its description and check that its inputs and requirements suit your setup.
- In Home Assistant, open Settings > Automations & scenes > Blueprints, select Import Blueprint, enter the blueprint URL, then preview and import it.
- On the Blueprints page, select the imported blueprint and choose Create automation.
- Name the automation, choose values for the displayed inputs, and save. The resulting automation uses the blueprint’s shared logic with the choices you supplied.
To review or change the configured values later, return to the Blueprints page and open the automation created from that blueprint. Home Assistant documents the full blueprint import and use workflow.
Keep blueprint updates under control
Blueprint-based automations use the shared blueprint definition. After the blueprint changes and automations are reloaded, those changes can affect its existing instances. That can be convenient when an author improves shared logic, but it also means an update is not isolated to a newly created automation.
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To retrieve an update to an imported blueprint, use Re-import blueprint on the Blueprints page. Re-importing overwrites the installed blueprint, and Home Assistant cautions that an incompatible change can break automations that depend on it. Check the update before applying it, especially if your setup relies on particular inputs or behavior.
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If a blueprint does not expose a choice you need, open the automation and select Take control. Home Assistant converts it into a regular automation whose triggers, conditions, and actions can be edited directly. The converted automation is no longer linked to the blueprint, so later blueprint changes will not update it. The action does not convert it back to a blueprint-based automation. See Home Assistant’s automation troubleshooting guide.
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Make a blueprint from an automation that already works
For a reusable pattern of your own, start with a functioning automation rather than designing the logic and blueprint at the same time. Home Assistant’s tutorial uses motion-triggered lighting as an example: the author replaces the specific sensor and light in the working automation with inputs, then references those inputs in the blueprint.
- Write and test the ordinary automation for one set of devices.
- Move the values that should vary—such as an entity or target—into the blueprint’s
inputdefinitions. - Replace the corresponding fixed values in the automation logic with
!inputreferences. - Add selectors to present suitable choices in the UI, then save the file in
<config>/blueprints/automation/. - Reload automations after editing the YAML so Home Assistant picks up the change, then create an automation from the blueprint and test it with the intended inputs.
A blueprint’s YAML includes metadata such as name and domain, an input section for configurable values, and the automation logic that uses those values. Inputs can be simple strings or more complex values such as a target object. Selectors describe what an input accepts and how the interface should present it—for example, limiting an entity choice to motion-class binary sensors or a target choice to lights. The official blueprint tutorial walks through this pattern and informal sharing through GitHub Gists and the Blueprint Exchange forum.
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Check domain and version requirements
The blueprint schema supports the automation, script, and template domains. Authors can include optional min_version metadata when a blueprint depends on newer Home Assistant features. Input sections were introduced in Home Assistant version 2024.6.0; blueprints that use them should declare an appropriate minimum version. Consult the blueprint schema documentation when writing or troubleshooting a blueprint.
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