Need Help Displaying Watchman Report file contents (watchman_report.txt) in a Markdown Card

Configuration
1

Hello. I have the Watchman integration working correctly, and it produces a file called “watchman_report.txt” in my /config/ folder. I am trying hard to get the results of this displayed in a Markdown Card so that I don’t have to go digging for the file every time it runs, if it fails, so I can see the results.

I have tried adding the following Command Line Sensor to my configuration.yaml file:

# Sensor to display output of Watchman Report to Lovelace
command_line:
  - sensor:
      name: Watchman Report Display
      command: cat /config/watchman_report.txt

And in Lovelace, I have the following Markdown Card configured:

type: markdown
content: |
  ## Watchman Report
  {{ states('sensor.watchman_report_display') }}

But, the card always only shows “unknown” instead of the contents of the watchman_report.txt file.

What am I doing wrong? I greatly appreciate any assistance.

2

I donot understand what you are trying to do, have you read the documentation? There is an example on how to create a report…is that insufficient for you?
dummylabs/thewatchman: Home Assistant custom integration to keep track of missing entities and services in your config files (github.com)

3

States are limited to a number of characters, I think 128 or 256. Either way you are likely to exceed that.

But anyway, go with what @vingerha pointed out.

4

Good morning @vingerha . Yes, I read the documentation. I am simply trying to display the report in a card.

Thank you, @nickrout , that is probably why it is not working. Unfortunate.

Would be nice to at least have a link in my card to display the report, but I can’t figure out how to do that either, as all the links seem to be to HTTP (external links) and cannot work with local files.

5

Which that code in the doc does, still not sure what is not working or not as expected.
The report is meant to be sent e.g. by email

6

Ah, I see now. Had to add the code below to the card, and install the card-mod. Thank you.

type: markdown
content: >-
  <h2 class="some"> <ha-icon icon='mdi:shield-half-full'></ha-icon> Watchman report</h2>
  <h3> Missing Services: {{ states.sensor.watchman_missing_services.state }} </h3>
  {%- for item in state_attr("sensor.watchman_missing_services", "services") %}
  <hr><table><tr> <td>  <ha-icon icon='mdi:cloud-alert'></ha-icon> {{ item.id }}
  <a title="{{item.occurrences}}">{{item.occurrences.split('/')[-1].split(':')[0]}}</a>
  </td></tr></table>
  {%- endfor %}
card_mod:
  style:
    ha-markdown:
      $: |
        ha-markdown-element:first-of-type hr{
          border-color: #303030;
        }