Spook Documentation

Spook is a custom integration for Home Assistant designed to extend native functionality and add new features that are outside the scope or philosophy of the core Home Assistant project.

Key capabilities include:

• Extending Actions: Adds new features to existing Home Assistant actions and introduces entirely new ones for use in automations and scripts.
• Adding Entities: Injects new entities into existing integrations to provide additional data points for monitoring and control (e.g., monitoring Home Assistant Cloud connections).
• Issue Reporting: Monitors your Home Assistant instance for potential configuration issues, such as non-existing entities used in automations, and reports them via the Home Assistant repairs dashboard.

Spook is a custom integration designed for use with Home Assistant. It extends a Home Assistant instance by providing a wide range of additional tools and capabilities.

Note: Spook is not affiliated with, endorsed, recommended, or supported by the official Home Assistant project. It is provided as-is without warranty.

Spook provides enhancements (referred to as 'ectoplasmic goodness') for various core Home Assistant integrations. These enhancements typically add extra validation, better entity attributes, or improved functionality to existing Home Assistant components.

Supported integrations include:

• Core Logic & Automation: Automations, Blueprints, Scripts, Scenes, and Repairs.
• Helpers & Inputs: Groups, Input number, Input select, Number, Select, Switch as X, and Timer.
• Sensors & Data: Proximity, Recorder, Riemann sum integral, Trend, and Utility meter.
• System & Presence: Dashboards / Lovelace, Home Assistant Cloud, Person, and Zone.

The Switch as X helper is a utility that allows you to convert a standard Home Assistant switch entity into a different entity type that better matches its actual function. This is useful for devices like smart plugs or relays that control specific appliances.

Supported conversions include turning a switch into a:

• Light
• Cover (e.g., for garage doors or blinds)
• Fan
• Lock
• Siren

The helper creates a new entity of the target type which mirrors the state and commands of the original source switch.

The enhanced zone actions in Spook allow for dynamic location tracking.

Example Scenario: You can use automations to dynamically create or update zones around moving objects like a car or a person. This enables logic such as:

• Identifying who is currently near a specific vehicle.
• Sending notifications when a user approaches a specific person.

An Action is a method that can be performed to control devices, entities, or perform other tasks like sending notifications, starting scripts, or querying services.

Action Types and Responses

Actions behave differently regarding their return values:

• No response: The most common type; these do not return data. You cannot use the response_variable option with these.
• Optional response: These may return data. You can use the response_variable option.
• Always has a response: These always return data, and using the response_variable option is required.

Action Targets

Actions can be targeted at specific devices, entities, or areas using the target parameter. For example, targeting an area like 'living room' will cause Home Assistant to resolve all entities within that area.

Home Assistant uses the Jinja2 template engine to dynamically generate values.

Template Functions

Functions used within templates to perform operations on data (e.g., now() for current time or is_state() to check an entity's state).

Template Filters

Filters modify the output of a template. They are applied using the pipe character (|). You can chain multiple filters together.

Template Test Functions

Special functions used to check conditions, typically used with the is operator (e.g., 3 is odd).

{# Basic filter #}
{{ "SPOOK" | lower }}

{# Chained filters #}
{{ "SPOOK" | lower | capitalize }}

{# Test function #}
{{ 3 is odd }}