bvandeusenandClaude Opus 5.5
ecc59cc882
Home Assistant writes an OS update and leaves the reboot to someone, so a scheduled one never finished unattended. The schedule now asks for the reboot once, follows it through Home Assistant going away, and counts it done when the Supervisor reports a different version with nothing pending. A machine that doesn't come back or falls back to the old version fails after 20 minutes, which ends the slot and raises update_failed. Install on the page and through MCP still leave the reboot to the person. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Home Assistant plugin
Keeps a Home Assistant instance running: shows whether backups are happening and whether the system has a problem, and installs Core, OS and add-on updates, on a click or a weekly schedule, each only after a fresh backup is confirmed. It looks after Home Assistant itself and doesn't read your devices. Each update goes on the timeline. Nothing is added to Home Assistant: you sign in, and Steward uses its standard API.
Setting it up
- In Home Assistant, turn on automatic backups (Settings → System → Backups).
- Make a user for Steward (Settings → People → Add person), as an administrator if Steward should install updates.
- On Steward's Home Assistant page, choose Connect, enter Home Assistant's address, and continue to its sign-in page. Sign in as that user.
Your browser and Steward both need to reach Home Assistant at that address. Home Assistant sends your browser back to Steward's Public base URL (Settings → General), so open Steward at that address.
What Steward holds
Steward stores a credential with the same access as the user who signed in. Home Assistant has no narrower permission, so an administrator's credential can do anything that administrator can, including controlling every device. Steward only uses it to read status, take backups and install updates. It is stored encrypted.
We recommend a service account, a user made just for Steward, rather than your own. What Steward does then appears under its own name in Home Assistant's logs, so it's easy to tell apart from what people do.
Installing needs an administrator, because Home Assistant only lets administrators take backups. With any other user, Steward shows status only. Steward learns which it has by asking once after sign-in, and a user who isn't an administrator is refused that one request, which Home Assistant may show as a failed login notification.
Removing the connection ends the sign-in on Home Assistant. You can also end it yourself under Security on that user's profile, and Steward then stops asking until you sign in again. Home Assistant bans an address after a few refused requests, so Steward stops after one refusal until you sign in again or choose Try again.
Installing an update
Install asks once, then Steward:
- Asks for a backup and waits until Home Assistant's last successful backup time moves. If it doesn't, nothing is installed.
- Asks for the update and follows it until the new version is installed, or until a deadline: 20 minutes for an add-on, 30 for Core, 45 for the OS.
One runs at a time, and it carries on if Steward restarts. Firmware and custom integrations are left to Home Assistant, and Supervisor updates itself.
An OS update takes effect only after the machine reboots, and Install leaves that to you. Steward records the update as done once Home Assistant reports the new version, which it does before the reboot. Home Assistant then raises a repair asking for the reboot, which appears under System problems until you do it.
System problems
Each read also asks Home Assistant whether the system itself has a problem, and the page and the overview show what it says:
- open repairs, from Settings → System → Repairs
- the Supervisor calling the system unhealthy or unsupported
- less than 10% of the disk free
- starting in recovery mode, when its configuration didn't load
- an add-on set to start on its own that isn't running
Repairs need an administrator's sign-in. Disk space and add-ons come from the Supervisor, so an install without one doesn't report them, and the page says so.
Scheduled updates
Set a day and time under Scheduled updates on the page. It's off until you do. At that time Steward installs what's waiting, add-ons first, then Core, then the OS, one at a time and each after its own confirmed backup. It starts nothing new more than 4 hours after the slot. The first failure ends the run and the rest wait, and the page, the overview and update_failed say so. A Core update restarts Home Assistant with nobody there to watch, and an update can change how automations behave.
An OS update installed by the schedule also reboots the machine, with nobody there to watch. It counts as done once the new version is running. If that hasn't happened 20 minutes after the reboot, for example because the machine didn't come back or fell back to the old version, the update is marked failed.
Metrics
Under source homeassistant, resource homeassistant, read every 5 minutes: is_up, updates_waiting, backup_age_hours, problems_open, disk_free_pct and update_failed. Useful alert rules: backup_age_hours above 26 for a missed daily backup, problems_open above 0, and update_failed above 0. A rule's no-data warning covers Home Assistant going quiet.