I’m getting closer. I used a Blueprint. Changed it in “path: sbyx/notify-or-do-something-when-an-appliance-like-a-dishwasher-or-washing-machine-finishes.yaml”. Worked after restart.
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I wonder if there is more to this then just a sytax warning.
I’m battling a mysterious Events Not Firing or Firing late issue,
Seems (I need to confirm) the automations that contains this sytax error are also the one involved in my issues.
Just change platform to trigger and that error while viewing the trace will be gone. I doubt it will solve your time drift issue though.
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Thank you and I took your advice and changed all the automations. You could be right, may have nothing to do with it. At this point I’m struggling to determine the cause as it seems others are too.
Unfortunately this isn’t a time drift issue, at least not in anyway I can determine. HA shows the correct time, the events are simply fired late or not at all. I’ll come back in a few days if it does solve the problem.
I fixed another automation with the same error.
My question: Was this syntax changed in Homeassistant?
Do we have to inform the owner of the Blueprint, so that he changes his code?
The syntax was already changed in 2024.10, so over a year ago.
I had this error with an automation created via the gui, it was on a simple state trigger step. It was fixed by resaving the automation.
I had this same error in many automations created by the GUI. I tried the template migration tool recommended here: Deprecation of legacy template entities in 2025.12 but it did nothing to resolve the problem.
The issue for my automations was the “platform” to “trigger” change. Some variant: of:
- Noticing the error message.
- Checking the “Step Config”
Followed by “Edit in YAML” and seeing that “platform” has been converted to “trigger”
… and manually stepping through all of my automations, and SAVE as @Chopper_Rob noted.
You don’t need to swap platform to trigger. Legacy template’s have nothing to do with that change either.
@petro As best as I can tell I no longer get the “error in describing trigger” message on any of my automations. When you say “You don’t need to swap platform to trigger.” do you just mean that operationally it makes no difference?
(it was just a “warning” message and everything worked before I made the swap)
Thanks!
it’s the same thing. Under the hood, the word platform is converted to triggers. There’s no built in system in HA that will warn you for using platform, so you must be using some 3rd party text software like VSCode that’s just making things up.
Hmm… I can spell Visual Studio Code, but I’ve never used it.
My system is at HA Core 2026.1.3. based on the comments from other users I’m sure my system has had this “problem” since 2025.12.x.
I only stumbled on to the Error in describing trigger: can’t access property “includes”, t is undefined because I was having issues with a camera automation. It turns out that my camera problem was caused by a leaf caught in a spiderweb.
I have no clue what caused the describing trigger: message, I do know that re-saving the automation made the message go away. As it has nothing to do with anything, I won’t go looking for trouble and I’ll only address the messages as I encounter them.
Thanks! (for permission to ignore this “problem” 
)
If platform is used, the GUI is unable to describe the trigger (as shown in the screenshot). The automation will run fine, but it will show the error from the screenshot instead of description of the trigger (like When House Vehicle changes from running to not running).
This is probably a bug which could be solved in the frontend, but right now it is also solved by changing platform to trigger. Then the GUI can describe the trigger.
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