How can I upgrade my integration to a new HA version (new python, new API, ...)?

Hi there,

I have developed an integration available via HACS over a year ago. Since then, I did some source code changes, but I never touched the hacore on my development environment. Honestly, I cannot remember how I setup my development environment, it was somehow hard that time …

As now there are breaking changes in the HA API, I have to update to a new hacore (or rather to a new homeAssistant python package).

I did that with some try and error in my repo:

  • Upgrade the used image to python 3.13 in the devcontainer.json, rebuild the container image
  • Upgraded the requirements.txt to a new HA version (homeassistant==2025.12.0), installed all dependencies with pip
  • Upgraded some github workflows to use python 3.13 instead of 3.12
  • Upgraded to “homeassistant”: “2025.12.0” in hacs.json
  • Created a file .python-version with 3.13.11

Is this the way to go? Is there a documentation how to upgrade an integration to a new HA version regarding the environment? What if there are changes in requirements.txt of the integration because of ha core, how can I know?

BTW, I also do not understand why the development documentation for custom integrations tells me to start with forking and setting up the HA repo. I think I do not need this at all if I just want to create and test a custom integration.