Can't get shell command to run in automation

Configuration
,
1

I can’t get the shell_command service to fire in my automations. What am I doing wrong?

I’m following this YouTube video on how to automate backing up my config files to a private github repo, but the video was made before HA removed the ability of the hassio.addon_stdio to run ssh scripts. No biggie; shell_command should ostensibly be able to do this.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

  1. I’ve created a shell script to back up my stuff to a github repo. The script works perfectly when running it manually from the command line (via the Terminal add-on)
  2. In my configuration.yaml file I’ve added:
# expose shell commands:
shell_command:
  ha_gitpush: "/config/ha_gitpush.sh"
  1. In my automation yaml file:
alias: HA Push to Github
description: >-
  Push all configuration files (as specified in /config/.gitignore) to the
  Github private repo.
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: "04:00:00"
  - platform: homeassistant
    event: start
condition: []
action:
  - service: shell_command.ha_gitpush
    data: {}
mode: single

Note that HA insists on adding the data: {} bit. I didn’t add this to the yaml file when I was editing it, but HA adds it automatically upon save.

Finally, when I run the automation, the trace comes back with running_script: false

params:
  domain: shell_command
  service: ha_gitpush
  service_data: {}
  target: {}
running_script: false

I’ve reloaded my config files after making changes; I’ve even completely rebooted HA. No dice.

2

What if you changed it to a command line entity?

command_line:
  - switch:        
      name: ha_gitpush
      command_on: "ssh -i /config/ha_gitpush.sh"
3

Try changing your config to this:

shell_command:
  ha_gitpush: /bin/bash /config/ha_gitpush.sh

That’s what’s in my config file (including the lack of quotes), and it works like a charm. I run my scripts the same way you do with the service.

5

Hmm, I’ve tried this suggestion with both quotes and no quotes, and still no dice.

6

Any errors in the log?

Are you sure the git utilities are installed in the HA docker image? The terminal is a separate docker image and may have different things installed.

Ssh into the box, then use docker ps to find the HA container, docker exec -it into the Ha container then try running the command.

1 Like
7

Could you make it work? I’m getting a similar result, a shell command runs correctly when I do it from the developer tools, but not when it’s on an automation.

8

Me too. It says the path is incorrect, but I’ve tried all the variations I can think of. Calling the script itself works fine, but the Shell Command service from automations results in an error that the file doesn’t exist.

9

Fun fact: I’m trying to do the same today to backup my esphome. :smiley:
I added everything like in the tutorials and it wasn’t working. After restart HA it works to execute the script, but username can’t be found.
configuration.yaml:

shell_command:
  ha_gitpush: /bin/bash /config/ha_gitpush.sh

ha_gitpush.sh:

cd /config/esphome
MESSAGE_TEXT="Code on "
COMMIT_CURRENT_DATE=$(date +'%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S')
COMMIT_MESSAGE="[$MESSAGE_TEXT]: $COMMIT_CURRENT_DATE"
echo "$COMMIT_MESSAGE"
git add .
git commit -m "$COMMIT_MESSAGE"
git push -u origin master

automations.yaml:

alias: push ESPHOME configuration to GitHub repo
description: Backup ESPHome configuration folder
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: "02:00:00"
condition: []
action:
  - service: shell_command.ha_gitpush
    data: {}
    response_variable: backup_response
  - if:
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{ backup_response['returncode'] == 0 }}"
    then:
      - service: notify.notify
        data:
          title: ✅ Backup successful
          message: "{{ backup_response['stdout'] }}"
    else:
      - service: notify.notify
        data:
          title: ❌ Backup failed
          message: "{{ backup_response['stderr'] }}"
mode: single

When calling script in dev tools service: "shell_command.ha_gitpush"

  [Code on ]: 25-02-2024 15:32:08
  On branch master
  Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
    (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

  nothing to commit, working tree clean
stderr: >-
  fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com': No such device or
  address
returncode: 128

I followed the instructions on Daily backup Home Assistant configuration into a git repository · GitHub , besides I didn’t init my git on /homeassistant/ but /homeassistant/esphome/. Also when running script in Advanced SSH & Web Terminal it worked. So I had to do 2 more things:

docker exec -it homeassistant bash
cd esphome
./ha_gitpush.sh
# --> Enter username and tokken for github
# --> Wait till commit finished and verify on github

Then:

git config credential.helper store

After that, change something in your HA folder and run
service: "shell_command.ha_gitpush"
again. This resolved in:

stdout: |-
  [Code on ]: 25-02-2024 15:44:00
  [master e5fdcfb] [Code on ]: 25-02-2024 15:44:00
   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
  branch 'master' set up to track 'origin/master'.
stderr: |-
  To https://github.com/***************/home-assistent.git
     ec739e7..e5fdcfb  master -> master
returncode: 0
10

Just an addition, which is pretty nice I think:
I changed the ha_gitpush.sh to:

# Change this to your folder if it is different and you don't want to backup just esphome configs.
cd /config/esphome

# Add all files to the repository with respect to .gitignore rules
git add .

# Commit changes with message prepared in file:
git commit --file .commit_message.txt

# Push changes towards GitHub
git push -u origin master

in same folder (for me /config/esphome) I have a file .commit_message.txt and if I change something in my config, I just write down what I’ve changed and why. So I don’ have every commit with “files at dd-mm-yyyy”, I have the message

changed i2c Pin mapping in file esphome_base.yaml