Dockhand App for Home Assistant: a modern Docker management UI in your sidebar

alexs · May 19, 2026, 3:53am

Hi everyone,

I just released a new Home Assistant app/add-on for Dockhand (https://dockhand.pro/), a modern Docker management UI that works well as a lightweight alternative to Portainer. This App installs Dockhand on your Home Assistant server.

Why?

I was sick of having to manually purge the docker images to prevent Home Assistant from running out of space. Dockhand has a nice auto prune feature that I wanted to try out without hosting a separate service.

What it does

This App installs Dockhand on Home Assistant. There are a couple of other apps that host the Dockhand Agent (Hawser) in HA but then you need to host Dockhand elsewhere.

With Dockhand in Home Assistant, you can manage your Docker setup from the HA sidebar, including:

Docker management from inside Home Assistant (both of local docker or remotes as well)
Ingress-based UI in the HA sidebar
Container/image/volume/network management
Real-time logs and stats
Terminal access to running containers
Persistent app data stored in Home Assistant
Optional automatic image pruning to help avoid disk buildup over time

Automatic Install

Click the link below to automatically add repository for Dockhand
Click Install to install Dockhand App

Manual Install

Add this repository to your Home Assistant instance via Settings -> Apps -> Install app -> ⋮ -> Repositories.
Click + Add and paste the repository URL https://github.com/alexschwantes/home-assistant-dockhand-app into the field and click Add
Find Dockhand in the App store and click Install.

Accessing Dockhand

Dockhand can be accessed via the Dockhand App page, or you can enable the app setting to "Show in sidebar" which will add a new menu to the sidebar:

Dockhand

Note: Direct access to Dockhand outside of Home Assistance is disabled.

First Use / Configuration

You first need to add the local Home Assistant Environment:

From the Dockhand Dashboard click go to settings
Click + Add environment
Enter a name and click + Add

Worthwhile setting: Under the Updates tab for the environment, enable automatic image pruning. This will schedule a clean up of old images to prevent Home Assistant running out of space.

You can enable Authentication within Dockhand if you want to restrict access.

Important Notes

Just like Portainer app, Protection Mode must be disabled as Dockhand requires direct access to the Docker socket (/var/run/docker.sock ).

Support

Github Repo: https://github.com/alexschwantes/home-assistant-dockhand-app