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Description

AppDaemon is a loosely coupled, multithreaded, sandboxed python execution environment for writing automation apps for Home Assistant home automation software. As of release 2,0,0 it also provides a configurable dashboard (HADashboard) suitable for wall mounted tablets.

Installation

Installation is either by pip3 or Docker.

Install and Run using Docker

Follow the instructions in DOCKER_TURORIAL.md

Install Using pip3

Before running AppDaemon you will need to install the package:

$ sudo pip3 install appdaemon

Configuration

When you have appdaemon installed by either method you are ready to start working on the appdaemon.yaml file. For docker users, you will already have a skeleton to work with. For pip users, you need to create a configuration directory somewhere (e.g. /home/homeassistant/conf) and create a file in there called appdaemon.yaml.

Your initial file should look something like this:

AppDaemon:
  logfile: STDOUT
  errorfile: STDERR
  threads: 10
  cert_path: <path/to/root/CA/cert>
  cert_verify: True
  time_zone: <time zone>
HASS:
  ha_url: <some_url>
  ha_key: <some key>

# Apps
hello_world:
  module: hello
  class: HelloWorld
  • ha_url is a reference to your home assistant installation and must include the correct port number and scheme (http:// or https:// as appropriate)
  • ha_key should be set to your key if you have one, otherwise it can be removed.
  • logfile (optional) is the path to where you want AppDaemon to keep its main log. When run from the command line this is not used - log messages come out on the terminal. When running as a daemon this is where the log information will go. In the example above I created a directory specifically for AppDaemon to run from, although there is no reason you can't keep it in the appdaemon directory of the cloned repository. If logfile = STDOUT, output will be sent to stdout instead of stderr when running in the foreground, if not specified, output will be sent to STDOUT.
  • errorfile (optional) is the name of the logfile for errors - this will usually be errors during compilation and execution of the apps. If errorfile = STDERR errors will be sent to stderr instead of a file, if not specified, output will be sent to STDERR.
  • threads - the number of dedicated worker threads to create for running the apps. Note, this will bear no resembelance to the number of apps you have, the threads are re-used and only active for as long as required to tun a particular callback or initialization, leave this set to 10 unless you experience thread starvation
  • cert_path (optional) - path to root CA cert directory - use only if you are using self signed certs.
  • cert_verify (optional) - flag for cert verification - set to False to disable verification on self signed certs.
  • time_zone (optional) - timezone for AppDaemon to use. If not specified, AppDaemon will query the timezone from Home Assistant

Optionally, you can place your apps in a directory other than under the config directory using the app_dir directive.

e.g.:

app_dir = /etc/appdaemon/apps

Configuring a Test App

The #Apps section is the configuration for the Hello World program and should be left in place for initial testing but can be removed later if desired, as other Apps are added, App configuration is fully described in the API doc.

To add an initial test app to match the configuration above, we need to first create an apps subdirectory under the conf directory. Then create a file in the apps directory called hello.py, and paste the followinginto it using your favorite text editor:

import appdaemon.appapi as appapi

#
# Hello World App
#
# Args:
#

class HelloWorld(appapi.AppDaemon):

  def initialize(self):
     self.log("Hello from AppDaemon")
     self.log("You are now ready to run Apps!")

With this app in place we will be able to test the App part of AppDaemon when we first run it.

Configuring the Dashboard

Configuration of the dashboard component (HADashboard) is described separately in the Dashboard doc

Example Apps

There are a number of example apps under conf/examples in the git repository, and the conf/examples.yaml file gives sample parameters for them.

Running

Docker

Assuming you have set the config up as described in the tutotial for Docker, you should see the logs output as follows:

$ docker logs appdaemon
2016-08-22 10:08:16,575 INFO Got initial state
2016-08-22 10:08:16,576 INFO Loading Module: /export/hass/appdaemon_test/conf/apps/hello.py
2016-08-22 10:08:16,578 INFO Loading Object hello_world using class HelloWorld from module hello
2016-08-22 10:08:16,580 INFO Hello from AppDaemon
2016-08-22 10:08:16,584 INFO You are now ready to run Apps!

Note that for Docker, the error and regular logs are combined.

PIP3

You can run AppDaemon from the command line as follows:

$ appdaemon -c /home/homeassistant/conf

If all is well, you should see something like the following:

$ appdaemon -c /home/homeassistant/conf
2016-08-22 10:08:16,575 INFO Got initial state
2016-08-22 10:08:16,576 INFO Loading Module: /home/homeassistant/conf/apps/hello.py
2016-08-22 10:08:16,578 INFO Loading Object hello_world using class HelloWorld from module hello
2016-08-22 10:08:16,580 INFO Hello from AppDaemon
2016-08-22 10:08:16,584 INFO You are now ready to run Apps!

AppDaemon arguments

usage: appdaemon [-h] [-c CONFIG] [-p PIDFILE] [-t TICK] [-s STARTTIME]
                 [-e ENDTIME] [-i INTERVAL]
                 [-D {DEBUG,INFO,WARNING,ERROR,CRITICAL}] [-v] [-d]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c CONFIG, --config CONFIG
                        full path to config diectory
  -p PIDFILE, --pidfile PIDFILE
                        full path to PID File
  -t TICK, --tick TICK  time in seconds that a tick in the schedular lasts
  -s STARTTIME, --starttime STARTTIME
                        start time for scheduler <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS>
  -e ENDTIME, --endtime ENDTIME
                        end time for scheduler <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS>
  -i INTERVAL, --interval INTERVAL
                        multiplier for scheduler tick
  -D {DEBUG,INFO,WARNING,ERROR,CRITICAL}, --debug {DEBUG,INFO,WARNING,ERROR,CRITICAL}
                        debug level
  -v, --version         show program's version number and exit
  -d, --daemon          run as a background process

-c is the path to the configuration directory. If not specified, AppDaemon will look for a file named appdaemon.cfg first in ~/.homeassistant then in /etc/appdaemon. If the directory is not specified and it is not found in either location, AppDaemon will raise an exception. In addition, AppDaemon expects to find a dir named apps immediately subordinate to the config directory.

-d and -p are used by the init file to start the process as a daemon and are not required if running from the command line.

-D can be used to increase the debug level for internal AppDaemon operations as well as apps using the logging function.

The -s, -i, -t and -s options are for the Time Travel feature and should only be used for testing. They are described in more detail in the API documentation.

Legacy Configuration

AppDaemon also currently supports a legacy ini style of configuration and it is shown here for backward compatibility. It is recommended that you move to the YAML format using the provided tool. When using the legacy configuration style, there are no HASS or HADashboard sections - the associated directives all go in the AppDaemon section.

[AppDaemon]
ha_url = <some_url>
ha_key = <some key>
logfile = STDOUT
errorfile = STDERR
threads = 10
cert_path = <path/to/root/CA/cert>
cert_verify = True
# Apps
[hello_world]
module = hello
class = HelloWorld

If you want to move from the legacy ini style of configuration to YAML, AppDaemon is able to do this for you. From the command line run:

$ appdaemon -c CONFIG --convertcfg
Converting /etc/appdaemon/appdaemon.cfg to /etc/appdaemon/appdaemon.yaml
$

AppDaemon should correctly figure out where the file is to convert form your existing configuration. After conversion, the new YAML file will be used in preference to the old ini file, which can then be removed if desired.

Note: any lines in the ini file that are commented out, whether actual comments of lines that are not active, will not be converted. Note 2: Docker users will unfortunately need to perform the conversion manually.

Starting At Reboot

To run AppDaemon at reboot, you can set it up to run as a systemd service as follows.

Add Systemd Service (appdaemon@appdaemon.service)

First, create a new file using vi:

$ sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/appdaemon@appdaemon.service

Add the following, making sure to use the correct full path for your config directory. Also make sure you edit the User to a valid user to run AppDaemon, usually the same user as you are running Home Assistant with is a good choice.

[Unit]
Description=AppDaemon
After=home-assistant@homeassistant.service
[Service]
Type=simple
User=hass
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/appdaemon -c <full path to config directory>
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
  • The above should work for hasbian, but if your homeassistant service is named something different you may need to change the After= lines to reflect the actual name.

Activate Systemd Service

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl enable appdaemon@appdaemon.service --now

Now AppDaemon should be up and running and good to go.

Operation

Since AppDaemon under the covers uses the exact same APIs as the frontend UI, you typically see it react at about the same time to a given event. Calling back to Home Assistant is also pretty fast especially if they are running on the same machine. In action, observed latency above the built in automation component is usually sub-second.

Updating AppDaemon

To update AppDaemon after new code has been released, just run the following command to update your copy:

$ sudo pip3 install --upgrade appdaemon

If you are using docker, refer to the steps in the tutorial.

Windows Support

AppDaemon runs under windows and has been tested with the official 3.5.2 release. There are a couple of caveats however:

  • The -d or --daemonize option is not supported owing to limitations in the Windows implementation of Python.
  • Some internal diagnostics are disabled. This is not user visible but may hamper troubleshooting of internal issues if any crop up

AppDaemon can be installed exactly as per the instructions for every other version using pip3.

Windows Under the Linux Subsystem

Windows 10 now supports a full Linux bash environment that is capable of running Python. This is essentially an Ubuntu distribution and works extremely well. It is possible to run AppDaemon in exactly the same way as for Linux distributions, and none of the above Windows Caveats apply to this version. This is the reccomended way to run AppDaemon in a Windows 10 and later environment.