I see a lot of requests on how to install add-ons to non-“Home Assistant OS” installs or non-“supervised” installs. After all, add-ons are basically just containers, so adding them to an existing container setup should be simple, right? After looking into it, it looks like the main issue is that these add-on containers need to talk to the “supervisor” container on boot. Unfortunately, installing this supervisor container is a non-starter for a lot of us, as I also use that Docker host for other purposes.
My proposal is thus the following:
- Create a “lite” version of the supervisor container.
- This version would warn you if it finds any issues, outdated packages, etc. but it could not change anything by itself. Basically a read-only version of the current supervisor container.
- Document a “supported” docker-compose.yml, with the different containers, networks and volumes you’d need for a proper installation with many add-ons
- For each add-on, document what it needs in the docker-compose.yml.
- This would be the “official” way of installing add-ons in this configuration.
The main advantage in this is that it’d give a path forward for people who already have a working home server with Docker (the current use-case for “HA Container”), without taking it completely over.