Home Automation 3 - Home Assistant basics - configuration.yaml
While you may feel like you have all the control over the HA, you will definitely need to get your hands dirty with configuration.yaml.
Locate the file
First, you should be able to its path in the frontend via Configuration -> Settings -> Info.
Common components
Likely, you can start with default setting. As you add more and more stuff, you will likely see the file grow.
Just to name a few common components:
automation: this is the place to store all your automations. It can be viewed/editted from the frontend too.sensor/binary_sensor: likely, you will start accumulating a list of devices. These are the places you manually setup/specify devices.recorder: how to handle data retention/recording.notify: groups to set up notification recipients.http: for blocking/allows connections/proxies, forwarding and etc.
Splitting
As the file grow, you can split out some of the components to their dedicated files. For example, to split sensor, you can use
sensor: !include sensor.yaml
and move all sensor related code to sensor.yaml.
Reload the file
Once you have edit the file, you can either restart HA by restarting the docker if you choose the docker installation. Or go to Configuration -> Server Control. Some components can have hot reload, while you may need to click “RESTART” to have a full reload.
