node-red-contrib-home-assistant-websocket

# Development

An environment with Home Assistant/Node Red can be easily spun up using docker and docker-compose along with built in VSCode debug enabled.

  1. Clone this repository: git clone https://github.com/zachowj/node-red-contrib-home-assistant-websocket.git
  2. Install node dependencies as usual: cd node-red-contrib-home-assistant-websocket && npm
  3. Start the docker dev environment: npm run dev a. Note: First run will take a bit to download the images ( home-assistants image is over 1gb (yikes!) after that launch is much quicker) b. Note: Also first run load of HomeAssistant web interface seems very slow, but after first time it's also much faster
  4. The npm run dev command will leave you with a terminal spitting out logs, ctrl+c out of this and it kills all the servers by design, just run npm run dev again to pick back up. The following services and ports are launched in the dev script
service port mappings info
home-assistant 8123:8123, 8300:8300 exposed for local access via browser
node-red 1880:1880, 9123:9229 exposed for local access via browser, 9123 is used for debugging. Includes default flow example connected to home-assistant

# Docker Tips

  1. If you run into environment issues running npm run dev:clean should remove all docker data and get you back to a clean state
  2. All data will be discarded when the docker container is removed. You can map volumes locally to persist data. Create and copy as directed below then modify docker-compose.yaml to map the container directories to the created host dirs below. See: ./_docker/docker-compose.mapped.yaml for an example or just use that file to launch manually
$ mkdir -p _docker-volumes/home-assistant/config
$ mkdir -p _docker-volumes/node-red/data
$ cp _docker/home-assistant/root-fs/config/* _docker-volumes/home-assistant/config/
$ cp _docker/node-red/root-fs/data/*  _docker-volumes/node-red/data

# Node Debugger via VSCode

Optional but it's pretty nice if you have VSCode installed.

  • Open the project directory in VSCode
  • Go to the debug tab ( or cmd/ctrl+shift+d)
  • In the debug tab you should see an target for "Attach: Docker", run that guy and you can place debug breakpoints and changes will be reloaded within docker automatically
  • Open http://localhost:8123 (opens new window) for HomeAssistant (password is password by default).
  • For node-red either open up via the HomeAssistant web link or left hand menu or just open a browser tab to http://localhost:1880 (opens new window)

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