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Home Assistant Blueprints: Reuse Automations Without Copying YAML

Home Assistant blueprints keep shared automation logic reusable while letting each instance use its own devices and settings. Here’s how to import, create, and maintain them.

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Home Assistant blueprints let you reuse one automation configuration for different rooms or devices by keeping the shared logic in a template and exposing home-specific choices as inputs. Import a blueprint, fill in those inputs, and save an automation; you can repeat that process for other devices without maintaining separate copies of the same logic.

What a Home Assistant blueprint does

A blueprint is a reusable template for an automation, script, or template entity. Its inputs are the values each user—or each automation instance—supplies, such as a motion sensor or a light. The shared configuration stays in the blueprint while each instance can use different devices and settings. See Home Assistant’s overview of blueprints.

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This is reuse, not a universal automation that automatically discovers every room. You create an instance from the blueprint and configure its available inputs. The options depend on what the blueprint’s author exposed.

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How to use a community blueprint

  1. Find a blueprint. Home Assistant documents blueprints shared through its community forum, GitHub, and GitHub Gists.
  2. Import it. In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Automations & scenes > Blueprints, select Import Blueprint, enter the blueprint URL, then preview and import it.
  3. Create an automation. Select the imported blueprint and choose Create automation. Name the automation, set its required and optional inputs, and save. The available fields vary by blueprint.
  4. Review or update it later. Return to the Blueprints page to revisit the configured values. To fetch changes from the source, use Re-import blueprint. This replaces the installed blueprint, so check the update for compatibility first: Home Assistant warns that an incompatible change can break automations that depend on it.
  5. Choose direct editing only when needed. Use Take control if you need to edit triggers, conditions, or actions beyond the blueprint’s inputs. Home Assistant converts that automation into a regular automation, which is no longer connected to the blueprint.

Home Assistant’s blueprint usage guide covers the import and creation interface.

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How to make your own blueprint

Start with an automation that already works. In Home Assistant’s tutorial, the example controls a light with a motion sensor. The author then moves the device-specific choices into inputs so the same logic can be configured for other sensors and lights.

Turn fixed values into inputs

A blueprint’s YAML includes metadata such as name and domain, along with an inputs section. Replace fixed entity values in the working automation with references to those inputs using Home Assistant’s !input tag. Inputs can be simple strings or more complex values, including a target object.

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Use selectors to guide configuration

Selectors define what an input accepts and how it appears in the interface. In the motion-and-light example, an entity selector can be filtered to motion-class binary sensors, while a target selector can be limited to lights. Descriptions and selectors help users choose suitable values instead of guessing what belongs in a field.

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Save, reload, and share

The tutorial places automation blueprint files in <config>/blueprints/automation/. After editing blueprint YAML, reload automations so Home Assistant picks up the change. You can share a blueprint through a GitHub Gist or the Home Assistant Blueprint Exchange forum. The official tutorial walks through the YAML and example.

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Blueprints support the automation, script, and template domains. The schema also allows optional min_version metadata for blueprints that rely on newer Home Assistant features. Input sections were introduced in version 2024.6.0; authors who use them should set an appropriate minimum version. Consult the blueprint schema when building a blueprint.

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What happens when a blueprint changes

Blueprint-based automations use the shared blueprint definition. After the blueprint changes and automations are reloaded, its updates are reflected in instances based on it. That makes it easier to apply a shared improvement, but it also means an update can affect multiple automations. Re-importing an upstream blueprint overwrites the installed copy; review changes before doing so.

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If you need to customize one automation beyond the inputs its blueprint offers, Take control gives you direct editing by converting it to a regular automation. That instance then stops inheriting blueprint changes. Home Assistant describes this conversion in its automation troubleshooting guide.

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When a blueprint is—and isn’t—the right fit

Blueprints are most useful when you have working automation logic that should be repeated with different inputs. They are less suitable when each automation has substantially different behavior or when you expect to edit every instance’s internals independently. Home Assistant’s automation guide recommends that beginners start with blueprint automations, but that is guidance for getting started, not a rule that every automation must be a blueprint: Automating Home Assistant.

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