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Make the AI a proposer, not the authority. Let it identify an intent and suggest a narrowly defined operation, then have Home Assistant enforce deterministic conditions, request explicit human approval for high-impact actions, recheck those conditions, and call a fixed script. This design prevents a language model from issuing arbitrary service calls to a lock, garage door, alarm, or other safety-sensitive device.
The reliable sequence is: receive a request, normalize it against an allowlist, check presence and device state, send an Approve/Reject notification, validate the response and its expiry, execute one fixed script, and record the result. Home Assistant automations provide the trigger-condition-action flow, scripts provide a controlled execution boundary, actionable notifications return a button event, and traces show what actually happened.
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Use two separate planes: an AI proposal plane and a Home Assistant enforcement plane. The model may classify a sentence such as “unlock the front door when I arrive” into an intent, target, and proposed parameters. It must not decide whether the operation is permitted or emit an unrestricted Home Assistant service call.
Home Assistant should own every security decision. A local automation receives the proposal, maps it to an allowlisted script, applies policy conditions, and pauses for approval when the impact warrants it. The final device operation is a named script with fixed targets and bounded parameters. If any check fails, the device remains unchanged.
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The seven-stage control flow
- Receive: An Assist sentence, dashboard control, brokered request, webhook, or AI service creates a request record.
- Normalize: Convert the proposal into a known intent, approved target, and valid parameter set. Reject unknown entities, broad areas, missing values, or disallowed times.
- Pre-check: Evaluate presence, current device state, alarm state, occupancy, and whether another run is already handling the same request.
- Request approval: Send a notification that states the target, requested change, reason, and expiry, with explicit Approve and Reject choices.
- Validate: Accept only the expected event from the intended user or device within the validity window, then repeat the critical safety checks.
- Execute: Call one fixed script containing the exact service action and target.
- Record: Review the automation trace and send a completion or failure notification naming the actual result.
Separating proposal from execution limits the damage of a prompt injection, malformed model output, stale context, or compromised remote integration. A low-risk suggestion can still be automated, but the policy boundary remains deterministic.
How do Home Assistant triggers, conditions, actions, and scripts enforce safety?
A trigger starts an automation at a particular event or time. Conditions are gates: if one fails, the following actions do not run. Actions execute in order, and an action failure stops later actions unless the automation explicitly branches or continues. Each run can be inspected in a trace.
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|---|---|---|
| Trigger | Starts a run when a proposal or approval event arrives | Receive an ai_action_proposed event or mobile notification response |
| Condition | Blocks every subsequent action when policy is false | Require the resident to be home and the alarm disarmed |
| Action | Performs a step in sequence | Notify, wait, test the response, then call a script |
| Script | Encapsulates a reusable, bounded operation | Unlock one named front-door lock with no model-supplied service name |
| Trace and attributes | Provide evidence of what ran and its current state | Determine which trigger fired, which condition failed, and whether a run remains active |
Scripts can be started from a dashboard, Assist, an automation, or another script. They are therefore a useful execution boundary: the approval branch selects one script, while the script itself contains the exact device call. Automation attributes expose information such as current runs, run mode, and last-triggered information, which helps detect overlapping or abandoned requests.
How should an AI proposal be normalized and allowlisted?
Define a small internal schema before any approval logic runs. A proposal should contain an intent, one target from an allowlist, only the parameters that intent requires, a request identifier, and an expiry. Treat every other field as untrusted text.
Allowlist intents and targets
- Map
unlock_front_doortoscript.unlock_front_door_fixed_target; never accept an arbitrary service name. - Map a target to a specific entity, not an area such as “all doors” or “downstairs.”
- Reject entities that are unavailable, disabled, renamed unexpectedly, or outside the policy’s permitted domain.
- Require parameters such as a duration or destination only when the mapped script defines a safe range.
- Reject broad requests, missing values, unknown intents, and model output that contains templates or executable Home Assistant syntax.
Attach context to the request
Store the request identifier, proposer, target, proposed change, creation time, expiry time, and the policy version used for evaluation. Including this context in the notification makes the approval understandable and helps prevent one approval from being reused for another request.
Keep the AI’s output short and typed. A natural-language explanation can be displayed to the resident, but it should not be parsed as a service call. The automation should make the final decision from the normalized fields and current Home Assistant state.
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Use an actionable notification, wait for its event, reject timeouts, and recheck safety conditions immediately before the fixed script. The following is an illustrative design sketch; replace entity IDs, notification service names, event identifiers, and payload fields with the syntax for the integrations installed in your system.
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alias: AI proposal - approval gate - unlock
triggers:
- trigger: event
event_type: ai_action_proposed
conditions:
- condition: state
entity_id: person.resident
state: home
actions:
- action: notify.mobile_app_phone
data:
title: "Approval required"
message: "AI requests an unlock for the front door."
data:
actions:
- action: APPROVE_UNLOCK
title: "Approve"
- action: REJECT_UNLOCK
title: "Reject"
- wait_for_trigger:
- trigger: event
event_type: mobile_app_notification_action
timeout: "00:02:00"
continue_on_timeout: false
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ wait.trigger.event.data.action == 'APPROVE_UNLOCK' }}"
- condition: state
entity_id: person.resident
state: home
- action: script.unlock_front_door_fixed_targetWhat each step protects
- The event trigger receives a proposal but does not unlock anything by itself.
- The initial presence condition stops obviously invalid requests before a notification is sent.
- The notification names the operation and offers two explicit choices rather than relying on a free-form reply.
- The wait has a two-minute validity window and does not continue when nobody responds.
- The template accepts only the expected approval action; rejection, a different action, malformed data, and timeout all stop the run.
- The second presence condition closes the stale-approval gap. Put equivalent checks for lock state, alarm state, occupancy, and any other critical policy immediately before the device action.
- The final action calls a fixed script instead of allowing the AI to provide a service, entity, or template.
Actionable notifications send a button event back to Home Assistant. The official examples include alarm activation and front-door lock or unlock controls, so the same pattern can be adapted to other high-impact devices.
Which safety conditions should be checked before and after approval?
Check the facts that can change while a person is deciding. A condition evaluated only before the notification can become false during the wait, leaving a stale approval able to trigger an unsafe operation.
Presence and identity
Require the intended resident to be home when that is part of the policy. Where the notification integration exposes a device or user identity, accept the response only from the expected person or device. Do not treat a response from an unknown phone as approval.
Device and alarm state
For a lock, verify that the door or lock is in the expected state and that no separate alarm or security rule has become active. For a garage door, check that the door is closed before opening and that the presence policy still permits the action. For an alarm, confirm the current armed mode and any entry-delay state.
Concurrency and occupancy
Check whether another automation is already operating the same device and whether occupancy or a conflicting scene has changed. A request that was safe when created may be unsafe after another run starts.
Approval validity
Use a short timeout appropriate to the action. Compare the response with the request identifier and expiry; never accept an approval event merely because its action label matches. Treat any missing, late, duplicated, or malformed response as rejection.
How can I prevent duplicate proposals and approval replay?
Give every proposal a unique request identifier and ensure that only one active run can consume it. Configure the automation’s run mode for the behavior you want, then make the approval event specific to that request.
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Choose a run policy
| Policy goal | Suitable behavior | Risk to consider |
|---|---|---|
| One request at a time | Block or discard a new proposal while an approval is pending | A legitimate second request may need to be retried |
| Queue requests | Process proposals in order | A queued unlock may become unsafe unless every item is rechecked when it reaches the front |
| Parallel handling | Allow independent devices to proceed simultaneously | Shared locks, alarms, or notifications can race unless targets are partitioned |
| Cancel and replace | Cancel the old request when a newer proposal arrives | The resident may approve a notification whose run has already been canceled |
Whatever mode you select, include the request identifier in the notification and require the returned event to match it. Mark a request consumed after approval, rejection, timeout, or execution failure. This prevents a delayed notification event from being applied to a later run.
Are webhooks safe for remote AI requests?
An unauthenticated or guessable webhook is not an acceptable trigger for unlocking a lock, opening a garage door, activating an alarm, or performing another destructive or safety-sensitive operation. Home Assistant’s trigger guidance explicitly warns against using webhooks for those purposes, including unlocking a lock or opening a garage door.
If a webhook is unavoidable
- Treat the webhook ID like a password and generate a unique, non-guessable value.
- Keep the ID secret; do not put it in public prompts, client-side code, screenshots, or logs.
- Leave
local_onlyenabled when internet access is unnecessary. - Make the webhook create only a constrained proposal record. It must not call the device service directly.
- Require the same local conditions and human approval used for an on-site request.
For an AI reachable from outside the home, prefer a brokered request that enters a constrained local automation. Remote reachability can deliver a proposal, but it must not remove the local approval event, final condition check, or fixed-script boundary.
What should the fixed execution script contain?
The script should be deliberately boring: a known service, a known entity, and only the parameters that have been validated. Keep policy decisions in the automation and device execution in the script so the boundary is easy to audit.
Good script properties
- A descriptive name tied to one operation and target.
- No model-provided service name, entity ID, area, or unrestricted template.
- Optional device-state verification before the service call when the integration reports state reliably.
- A clear success or failure path that allows the calling automation to notify the resident.
- Idempotent behavior where possible, such as locking only when the lock is not already locked.
What not to put in the script
Do not accept a raw YAML fragment, a templated service call copied from model output, or an entity list assembled from untrusted text. Do not hide a broad “run anything” script behind an approval button; the human should be approving a specific, understandable operation.
How should failures, timeouts, and device errors behave?
Design failure behavior as deliberately as success behavior. A timeout means rejection and leaves the device unchanged. A failed condition stops later actions. A failed device action normally stops subsequent actions, so add an explicit failure notification or a continuation branch where that is safe.
Stale approval
Recheck presence, device state, alarm state, occupancy, request identifier, and run status after the response. If any value is no longer acceptable, notify that the approval expired or the situation changed.
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Notification timeout
End the run without touching the device. Record the timeout so the resident can distinguish “no approval” from “device failure.” Avoid automatically retrying a high-impact request without a new approval.
Action failure
Send a failure notification that names the operation and, where the integration exposes it, the device’s reported state. Do not claim success merely because the script was called; success should reflect the actual device result.
Automation interruption
Use traces and run attributes to find whether the run stopped at the trigger, a condition, the wait, or the device action. If an integration becomes unavailable, require a fresh request and approval after it recovers rather than replaying an old event.
How do I make the approval flow observable and auditable?
Use the automation trace for each run. It shows which trigger fired, the order of actions, condition results, waits, and the point at which execution stopped. Automation attributes provide complementary information such as the configured run mode, current runs, and last-triggered information.
Record these fields
- Request identifier and normalized intent.
- Target script and target entity.
- Proposal and approval timestamps.
- Approving user or device, when available.
- Condition results before and after the wait.
- Script result, device-reported state, or error.
- Whether the run ended by rejection, timeout, cancellation, or completion.
Keep notifications understandable to the person who must make the decision. “AI requests an unlock for the front door until 18:30; resident is home; expires in two minutes” is more useful than a model-generated paragraph with no target or deadline.
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Which approval design should I choose?
The right design depends on impact, frequency, reachability, and how much ambiguity the target allows. Compare designs using the same criteria rather than treating every AI action as equally risky.
| Design | Approval behavior | Allowlisting | Best fit | Main drawback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Always approve | Every request pauses for an explicit response | One fixed script per operation | Locks, garage doors, alarms, and other high-impact actions | Slower and inconvenient for frequent, low-risk requests |
| Exception approval | Routine requests run automatically; unusual context requires approval | Strict limits on time, presence, target, and parameter ranges | Frequent actions with a well-defined safe baseline | Policy mistakes can classify an unsafe request as routine |
| Local-only approval | Approval is accepted from a local, trusted device | Targets and scripts remain local and fixed | Homes that do not need remote control | Cannot approve while away |
| Remote approval through a broker | Remote request enters the same local gate and requires approval | Broker can submit proposals, never raw service calls | Residents who need controlled access while away | More identity, connectivity, and notification failure modes |
| Two-person approval | Two independent approval events are required | Separate identities and non-reusable request IDs | Exceptional operations requiring stronger human oversight | Higher friction and more complex timeout handling |
For a front-door unlock, always-approve with a fixed target and a short expiry is the clearest starting point. For lights or a thermostat change, an exception policy may be reasonable only after you have bounded the target, value range, time window, and presence context.
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How should I test an AI approval automation before trusting it?
Test each branch with a harmless target or a simulated event first. The goal is to prove that unsafe states stop the run and that only the intended approval can reach the script.
- Send a valid proposal while the resident is home and confirm that no device action occurs before approval.
- Choose Reject and verify that the script is never called.
- Let the notification expire and verify that the device remains unchanged.
- Change presence, alarm state, or device state while the notification is waiting; confirm the post-approval condition blocks execution.
- Send an approval event with the wrong action label, request identifier, user, or device; confirm rejection.
- Submit two proposals rapidly and verify the configured run mode and request-ID rules prevent cross-approval.
- Simulate an unavailable device and confirm the failure notification reports failure rather than success.
- Inspect the trace for every test and verify that the recorded path matches the expected branch.
- Attempt a remote trigger with an invalid or missing secret and confirm it cannot reach the execution script.
Repeat these tests after changing integrations, notification payloads, run modes, scripts, or entity names. A safe design is not only a correct YAML snippet; it is a maintained policy whose failure paths remain visible.
What are the essential rules to retain?
- AI output proposes an intent; Home Assistant decides whether it is allowed.
- Conditions gate later actions, and the final condition belongs immediately before the device action.
- Actionable notifications provide explicit approval events; rejection and timeout must leave the device unchanged.
- Allowlisted fixed scripts are safer than model-generated service calls.
- Request identifiers, short expiries, identity checks, and run-mode choices prevent replay and duplicate execution.
- Traces, run attributes, and result notifications make every outcome reviewable.
- Do not expose destructive operations through unauthenticated or internet-facing webhooks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Home Assistant require two people to approve an AI request?
Yes. Create two distinct approval events tied to the same request identifier and require approvals from separate trusted users or devices before calling the execution script. Give the pair a shared expiry so an old first approval cannot be combined with a later request.
What should happen if the phone with the approval notification is offline?
The wait should expire and the automation should end without changing the device. Provide a separate, authenticated local control path if emergency operation is necessary, rather than silently approving when delivery fails.
Can I use a voice response instead of notification buttons?
A voice interface can submit a proposal or an approval event, but treat speech recognition as untrusted input. Require the same normalized request, identity checks, expiry, and final conditions as a button-based approval.
How do I revoke a pending approval?
Maintain a request state that can be marked canceled by a trusted dashboard control or policy event. Check that state after the approval wait and before the script call, so cancellation wins even if a notification button was pressed moments earlier.
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