I have a blueprint that is used to create 18 automations on one system. I want to write a log file, in which each automation (i.e. the blueprint) identifies itself by its friendly name.
How can I do that?
I think I saw a feature request on this forum for a reference to ‘self’ but cannot find it now. It would be great if I could just write something like {{ self.friendly_name }} but I don’t think that exists now, does it?
The variable this is used for self-referencing. When used in an active automation, it returns the previous state object of that automation.
So you would use this.name or this.attributes.friendly_name.
Thanks. Looks like the solution but what do you mean exactly by ‘previous’ state object. Is it not the current one?
Is it documented somewhere?
It contains a State Object whose data represents the entity’s current values, meaning the ones the system, in the case of an automation, (or template for a Template Sensor) will (very shortly) overwrite with new values. That’s why it’s often referred to as being the “previous” state object.
