Hey there,
I know this topic has been discussed many times (thus I am very sorry for asking again) but I was unable to find the solution in the forum.
I’d like to set the value of a variable depending on a condition and use the variable afterwards (outside of the IF block). As stated in the docs variables have their own scope and are reset after the if.
Take the example from the docs
sequence:
# Set the people variable to a default value
- variables:
people: 0
# Try to increment people if Paulus is home
- if:
- condition: state
entity_id: device_tracker.paulus
state: "home"
then:
# At this scope and this point of the sequence, people == 0
- variables:
people: "{{ people + 1 }}"
# At this scope, people will now be 1 ...
- action: notify.notify
data:
message: "There are {{ people }} people home" # "There are 1 people home"
# ... but at this scope it will still be 0
- action: notify.notify
data:
message: "There are {{ people }} people home" # "There are 0 people home"
How can I achieve that there are 1 people home in the last action?
The only solution I found was to create helpers for the variables, however as I want to define multiple variables it does not seem appropriate/efficient to define so many helpers that are only used in one automation.
It has to be possible to define global variables, right?
Background (not that important)
I want to create a notification with different content and to different users depending on a condition. Currently I have all steps after the variable definition duplicated in each branch of the condition which creates a whole lot of code duplication.
alias: "Benachrichtigung: Wenn Felicitas auf dem Heimweg ist"
description: ""
triggers:
- alias: Wenn Felicitas sich an zuhause annähert
trigger: state
entity_id:
- sensor.home_bewegung_von_felicitas
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 2
seconds: 0
to: towards
id: felicitas_heimweg
- alias: Wenn Felix an zuhause annähert
trigger: state
entity_id:
- sensor.home_bewegung_von_felix
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 2
seconds: 0
to: towards
id: felix_heimweg
conditions: []
actions:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ trigger.id == 'felicitas_heimweg' }}"
sequence:
- variables:
person_coming: seine Freundin
user: den Nutzer
distance: "{{ states('sensor.home_entfernung_von_felicitas') }}"
unit_of_measurement: >-
{{ state_attr('sensor.home_entfernung_von_felicitas',
'unit_of_measurement') }}
phone_to_notify: mobile_app_felix_handy
notify_title: Felicitas ist auf dem Heimweg
- variables:
main_prompt: >-
Benachrichtige {{ user }} darüber, dass {{ person_coming }} auf
dem Heimweg ist und aktuell {{ distance }}{{ unit_of_measurement
}} entfernt ist. Sei glücklich und enthusiastisch darüber.
Schreibe genau einen kurzen Satz. Benutze ein glückliches Emoji
am Ende.
- action: google_generative_ai_conversation.generate_content
metadata: {}
data:
prompt: "{{ main_prompt }}"
response_variable: response
- action: notify.{{ phone_to_notify }}
metadata: {}
data:
message: "{{ response.text }}"
alias: Wenn Felicitas auf dem Heimweg ist
- conditions: []
sequence:
- variables:
person_coming: ihr Freund
user: die Nutzerin
distance: "{{ states('sensor.home_entfernung_von_felix') }}"
unit_of_measurement: >-
{{ state_attr('sensor.home_entfernung_von_felix',
'unit_of_measurement') }}
phone_to_notify: mobile_app_felicitas_handy
notify_title: Felix ist auf dem Heimweg
- variables:
main_prompt: >-
Benachrichtige {{ user }} darüber, dass {{ person_coming }} auf
dem Heimweg ist und aktuell {{ distance }}{{ unit_of_measurement
}} entfernt ist. Sei glücklich und enthusiastisch darüber.
Schreibe genau einen kurzen Satz. Benutze ein glückliches Emoji
am Ende.
- action: google_generative_ai_conversation.generate_content
metadata: {}
data:
prompt: "{{ main_prompt }}"
response_variable: response
- action: notify.{{ phone_to_notify }}
metadata: {}
data:
title: "{{ notify_title }}"
message: "{{ response.text }}"
alias: Wenn Felicitas auf dem Heimweg ist
mode: single
Thank you for any hints, I appreciate it! 
Cheers,
Felix