HA should replace yaml with Json; it’s too complex to copy&paste with all the “white spaces” in front… that’s the reason people prefer UI… you take a snapshot and that’s all… but I’m not surprised that python people are in love with yaml…
JSON and yaml are interchangeable. You can write your entire config in json if you want.
2 Likes
For sure!!!
Just checked my telegram_bot yaml configuration against json version of updated UI setup. It was 6 lines, became 42 with a lot of unnesasary stuff.
I find YAML configuration far more convenient for making changes, duplicating parts of the config with small modifications, and for copying entire setups to other servers.
UI configuration is great for end-users who have no technical background — for people who just want a simple way to set things up without touching code. But for those of us who do have technical skills, and especially for contributors who build and maintain Home Assistant setups for multiple users, YAML is much more efficient.
With YAML, you can instantly duplicate a configuration block, tweak a couple of lines, and be done. You can keep everything in one file, easily share it between instances, and version-control it. In the UI, achieving the same often requires clicking through multiple pages, sometimes filling in part of the configuration on one screen, clicking “Next,” then another part on another screen, and so on.
Even worse — if you want to recreate or slightly modify such a configuration, you can’t simply copy-paste it. You can’t even see the entire setup in one place without navigating through those pages. For some integrations, you’d literally have to take screenshots of every step and then manually redo it. That’s just painful compared to editing a YAML file directly.
By removing YAML options from integrations, Home Assistant is making it harder to build reusable, portable configurations. It feels like the project is moving toward “set it up once and never touch it again” scenarios, instead of encouraging modular, shareable setups that advanced users can adapt and improve over time.
10 Likes
Sounds like it’s moving in the right direction. To becoming a stable platform that anyone can rely on for long term deployment.
It’s pretty clear that editing YAML directly is still possible and quite easy for anyone that wants to do so. What’s going away is YAML as a requirement or pre-requisite.
Now we need LTS releases of HASS as the update situation is still very much untenable for off-site customer deployment and maintenance.
That’s not entirely true. Most of the integrations don’t support YAML, and it’s being removed from more and more old integrations. While we can still use YAML for automations and UI config, which is arguably the most important, but managing many devices is still painful through the UI and these are not possible to configure via YAML.
I would say - “absolutely not true” instead of “not entirely true”.
Yeah, I would also prefer UI-first config for new users or quick edits, but I would absolutely love an “edit as YAML” button on the integrations page (I know it’s not really possible technically) similar to what we have for automations or dashboard cards…