How to run commands from Home Assistant

Russ

Home Assistant (aka Hass.io) is a popular automation system sort of like SmartThings but it's open source.

EDIT 10/6/2024: The official TRIGGERcmd integration is now available in Home Assistant version 2024.10+. This Youtube video shows how it works.

You can click the little lightning bolts to run on and off commands.

I wrote this start.sh bash script to run Home Assistant for the Youtube demo but you could also use it to try out Home Assistant and/or the TRIGGERcmd integration for it:

#!/bin/bash

mkdir -p ~/ha/config
docker run -d \
  --name homeassistant \
  --privileged \
  -e TZ=America/Detroit \
  -v ~/ha/config:/config \
  -v /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro \
  -p 8123:8123 \
  --rm \
  ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable

This shows my session where I ran it, then confirmed it's running with the docker ps command:

russ@RussHP:~/ha$ cat start.sh
#!/bin/bash

mkdir -p ~/ha/config
docker run -d \
  --name homeassistant \
  --privileged \
  -e TZ=America/Detroit \
  -v ~/ha/config:/config \
  -v /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro \
  -p 8123:8123 \
  --rm \
  ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable
russ@RussHP:~/ha$ ./start.sh
a32957000a3f029fda67ff1cc2d96b22d2fe4f13125536023e94723a5df2dc6f
russ@RussHP:~/ha$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                          COMMAND   CREATED       STATUS       PORTS                    NAMES
59c343cb87fa   ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable   "/init"   2 hours ago   Up 2 hours   0.0.0.0:8123->8123/tcp   homeassistant

After it was running, I was able to access it at http://localhost:8123

The following is the old method that uses the "RESTful Command" to call the TRIGGERcmd api:

Here's how you trigger commands on your computers from Home Assistant using a RESTful Command.

Add this to the end of your configuration.yaml file:

rest_command:
  triggercmd_calculator:
    url: 'https://www.triggercmd.com/api/run/triggerSave'
    method: "post"
    content_type: "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
    payload: "trigger=calculator&computer=russfam&token=(your token from Instructions page)"

You can test it by clicking the little cell phone icon in the lower left under Developer tools, then select rest_command.triggercmd_calculator in the Service field, then click CALL SERVICE. This is what it should look like:

TRIGGERcmd with Home Assistant

I installed Home Assistant on my QNAP nas as a Docker container. If you do that, I recommend these two settings:

Create a folder you have access to, and mount it as /config in your container. That will give you easy access to the configuration files, and when you upgrade the container, you can re-mount this folder to /config.
Use HOST networking, so you can access Home Assistant at a URL like http://homeassistant.local:8123.

rafastanger

I can get the commands to be executed by Alexa, but when I try to make the call directly through the Home Assistant, I get the error: Status Code 400

Does the call syntax remain the same?

Russ

@rafastanger, that should still work, but you can also use this "get" method below. One thing to note - your trigger and computer values can be different from your voice words you'd use with Alexa.

rest_command:
  triggercmd_calculator:
    url: 'https://www.triggercmd.com/api/run/triggerSave?trigger=calculator&computer=russhp&token=(your token)'
    method: "get"

blizzrdof77

Is it possible to pass arguments via this method?

Russ

@blizzrdof77, good question. Yes, you can add this to your URL or payload to pass parameters:

&params=(yourParams)

You can use a space or %20 between parameters if you have multiple parameters to pass, like this:

&params=(param1)%20(param2)

blizzrdof77

@russ Thanks for this, by the way!

For anyone else using TriggerCMD with Home Assistant, I wrote this helper script with a rest_command that I have found very useful for running commands with parameters (or without parameters).

Just be sure to change "ADD.YOUR.TRIGGERCMD.TOKEN.HERE" to your token.

The Script:

## -- RUN TRIGGERCMD REST COMMAND
script:
  run_triggercmd_rest_command:
    alias: Run TriggerCMD REST Command
    description: Execute a RESTful command with params and a device using triggercmd.
    icon: mdi:apple-keyboard-command
    variables:
      params: ''
      token: 'ADD.YOUR.TRIGGERCMD.TOKEN.HERE'
    fields:
      trigger:
        description: The name of the trigger
        example: Exit Windows Program
        required: true
      computer:
        description: The name of the computer as shown in your computer list on triggercmd.com.
        example: My Computer Name
        required: true
      params:
        description: Optional args string to pass with the trigger, using a space for multiple params [optional].
        example: ''
        required: false
    sequence:
    - service: rest_command.tcmd_run_command
      data:
        trigger: "{{ trigger }}"
        computer: "{{ computer }}"
        params: "{{ params }}"
        token: "{{ token }}"

The Rest Command

## -- RUN TRIGGERCMD COMMAND
rest_command:
  tcmd_run_command:
    url: 'https://www.triggercmd.com/api/run/triggerSave'
    method: POST
    content_type: 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
    payload: 'trigger={{trigger|replace(" ","%20")}}&computer={{computer|replace(" ","-")}}&params=+{{params}}&token={{token}}'

Example Usage

service: script.run_triggercmd_rest_command
data:
  trigger: This Is The Trigger Name                 # Literally the name of the command
  computer: My Computer                             # (will render as 'My-Computer')
  params: '--female "Shutdown request confirmed"'   # This has 3 params

AZRushFan

@blizzrdof77 @Russ I am new to HA and trying to get this working but not sure if my issue is related to possible syntax changes since 2021. Does this format still apply? Thanks.

Russ

@AZRushFan, yes, I just tried it. It worked for me with this text at the end of my configuration.yaml:

rest_command:
  triggercmd_calculator:
    url: 'https://www.triggercmd.com/api/run/triggerSave'
    method: "post"
    content_type: "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
    payload: "trigger=calculator&computer=russfam&token=(my token)"

That said, would it help if I built an official Home Assistant integration?

EDIT 9/15/24: The official TRIGGERcmd integration will be available in next Home Assistant version (2024.10). It's due to be released on 10/2/2024. Please try using it instead of the "RESTful Command" method described above.