When you gather data in a blueprint using !inputs, you will need to use that data in the lower parts of the blueprint. All the native Home Assistant places accept the
!input my_data
format for this.
If you are using the value in a template, however, this does not work.
The code inside of the template brackets is all rendered by a jinja2 template engine, not Home Assistant. That engine does not know what the !input tag is. That is looking for a variable.
Therefore in order for template engine to see the value, it needs to be converted to a variable.
...
input:
notification_id:
name: Optional Persistent Notification ID
default: []
selector:
text: {}
variables:
# Get the notification_id into a variable.
_notification_id: !input notification_id
- choose:
- conditions: '{{ _notification_id | length > 0 }}'
sequence:
- alias: Notify interested parties WITH notification_id
service: persistent_notification.create
data:
title: '{{ states[trigger.to_state.entity_id].name + '' Status'' }}'
message: '{{ states[trigger.to_state.entity_id].name + '' is 'home' }} '
notification_id: '{{ _notification_id }}'
This conversion / translation will work in both the variables: and trigger_variables: sections.