Packages

Packages in Home Assistant provides a way to bundle different component’s configuration together. We were already introduced to the two configuration styles (specifying platforms entries together or individually) on the adding devices page. Both of these configuration methods require you to create the component key in the main configuration.yaml file. With packages we have a way to include different components, or parts of configuration using any of the !include directives introduced in splitting the configuration.

Packages are configured under the core homeassistant/packages in the configuration and take the format of a packages name (no spaces, all lower case) followed by a dictionary with the package config. For example, package pack_1 would be created as:

homeassistant:
  ...
  packages: 
    pack_1:
      ...package configuration here...

The package configuration can include: switch, light, automation, groups or the majority of the Home Assistant components.

It can be specified inline or in a seperate YAML file using !include.

Inline example, main configuration.yaml:

homeassistant:
  ...
  packages: 
    pack_1:
      switch:
        - platform: rest
          ...
      light:
        - platform: rpi
          ...

Include example, main configuration.yaml:

homeassistant:
  ...
  packages: 
    pack_1: !include my_package.yaml

The file my_package.yaml contains the “top-level” configuration:

switch:
  - platform: rest
    ...
light:
  - platform: rpi
    ...

There are some rules for packages that will be merged:

1. Component names may only use the basic form (e.g. switch and switch 1 or switch aa is not accepted).
2. Platform based components (light, switch, etc) can always be merged.

3. Components where entities are identified by a key that will represent the entity_id ({key: config}) need to have unique ‘keys’ between packages and the main configuration file.

   For example if we have the following in the main config. You are not allowed to re-use “my_input” again for input_boolean in a package:

    input_boolean:
      my_input:
   

4. Any component that is not a platform [2], or dictionaries with Entity ID keys [3] cannot be merged and can only occur once between all packages and the main configuration.

Components inside packages can only specify platform entries using configuration style 1, where all the platforms are grouped under the component name.

Create a packages folder

One way to organise packages would be to create a folder named “packages” in your Home Assistant configuration directory. In the packages directory you can store any number of packages in a YAML file. This entry in your configuration.yaml will load all packages:

homeassistant:
  packages: !include_dir_named packages

This uses the concept splitting the configuration and will include all files in a directory with the keys representing the filenames. See the documentation about splitting the configuration for more information about !include_dir_named and other include statements that might be helpful.