lovelace-gen.py A lovelace configuration generator for homeassistant

This script will generate a ui-lovelace.yaml file based off a file lovelace/main.yaml. Other files in the lovelace directory can be included into the configuration using the !include filename statement. This allows for separation of the configuration into several files, and reuse of cards.

Usage

Create a directory <homeassistant config dir>/lovelace and the file <homeassistant config dir>/lovelace/main.yaml.

Inside your homeassistant config directory, run the command:

./lovelace-gen.py

This will create the file ui_lovelace.yaml.

Note: lovelace-gen requires some non-standard python packages to be installed, namely PyYAML, requests and Jinja2. Those are all required by home-assistant, so by running the script in the same environment as hass, you'll get them for free. Also, python3 is required.

Usage in Hass.io

Create a directory config/lovelace and the file config/lovelace/main.yaml.

In your configuration.yaml file, make a shell command:

shell_command:
  lovelace_gen: 'python /config/lovelace-gen.py'

Restart Home Assistant. Then run the service shell_command.lovelace_gen, preferably from <hass_ip_address:port>/dev-service.

This will create the file ui_lovelace.yaml.

Or add below automation to your configuration file along with shell command. This will create file ui_lovelace.yaml on each restart of HA.

automation:
 - alias: homeassistant_start_lovelace_genn
   hide_entity: true
   trigger:
     - platform: homeassistant
       event: start
   action:
     - service: shell_command.lovelace_gen

If something doesn't work

First of all, check the homeassistant log. It might show an error code. 1 probably means the command wasn't called with correct arguments, 2 that the file lovelace/main.yaml couldn't be opened, 4 that the oputput file could not be written and 3 that something went wrong in processing the input.

Code 4 could have several causes. Among those are

• badly formated yaml
• a file included using !include or !resouce could not be found
• something wrong in a template.

With a bit of luck, you might get a more useful error message if you set your home assistant log level to debug (see manual).

Special commands

The following commands can be used in lovelace/main.yaml or any file included using the !include command.

• !include <filename> is replaced with the contents of lovelace/<filename>.
• !resource [<path>/]<filename> will copy the file lovelace/<path>/<filename> to www/lovelace/<filename> and be replaced with /local/lovelace/<filename>. A timestamp will be added after the url to make sure any cache of the file is invalidated between runs.
• jinja2 templates allows for variables, loops, macros and flow controll.

Example

lovelace/main.yaml:

title: My Awesome Home

# Copy resources from anywhere to www/lovelace and include them
resources:
  - url: !resource monster-card/monster-card.js
    type: js
  - url: !resource /home/hass/tracker-card/tracker-card.js?v=0.1.4
    type: js

views:
  - title: Home
    id: home
    cards:
      - type: picture_entity
        image: http://placekitten.com/6/200/300
        entity: light.cat_light
      - !include presence_tracker.yaml
      - !include lights.yaml
  - !include family_view.yaml

---

lovelace/family_view.yaml:

title: Family
id: family
cards:
  - !include presence_tracker.yaml

---

lovelace/presence_tracker.yaml:

type: entity_filter
entities:
  - device_tracker.paulus
  - device_tracker.anne_there
state_filter:
  - 'home'
card:
  type: glance
  title: People that are home

---

lovelace/lights.yaml

{% macro light_pe(switch, image) %}
{ type: picture-entity,
  entity: {{switch}},
  image: !resource {{image}}
  show_state: false,
  tap_action: toggle
}
{% endmacro %}
type: vertical-stack
cards:
  - {{ light_pe('light.kitchen_light', 'images/kitchen_light.png') }}
  - {{ light_pe('light.bedroom', 'images/bedroom_light.png') }}

---

Generated ui-lovelace.yaml:

# This file is automatically generated by lovelace-gen.py
# https://github.com/thomasloven/homeassistant-lovelace-gen
# Any changes made to it will be overwritten the next time the script is run.

title: My Awesome Home
resources:
- {type: js, url: /local/lovelace/monster-card.js?1533670932.854793}
- {type:js, url: /local/lovelace/tracker-card.js?1533670932.854793&v=0.1.4}
views:
- cards:
  - {entity: light.cat_light, image: 'http://placekitten.com/6/200/300', type: picture_entity}
  - card: {title: People that are home, type: glance}
    entities: [device_tracker.paulus, device_tracker.anne_there]
    state_filter: [home]
    type: entity_filter
  - cards:
      - {type: picture_entity, entity: light.kitchen_light, image: /local/lovelace/kitchen_light.png, show_state: false, tap_action: toggle}
      - {type: picture_entity, entity: light.bedroom, image: /local/lovelace/bedroom_light.png, show_state: false, tap_action: toggle}
    type: vertical-stack
  id: home
  title: Home
- cards:
  - card: {title: People that are home, type: glance}
    entities: [device_tracker.paulus, device_tracker.anne_there]
    state_filter: [home]
    type: entity_filter
  id: family
  title: Family

---

---

Experimental feature

If lovelace-gen.py is run with arguments lovelace-gen.py http://ha-base-url password it will populate the jinja variable states with the current state.

Then you can do things like

excluded_entities:
  {% for state in states.automation %}
  - {{ states.automation[state].entity_id }}
  {% endfor %}

It doesn't work exactly like in home-assistant templates... you'll have to experiment a bit.