When to use quotes on entity_id

Configuration
1

I had following bit of automation:

- alias: Vijver lucht uit - triggering temperature
  trigger: 
    - platform: time
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 05
  condition:
    - condition: state                      # Program is not active, and,
      entity_id: input_boolean.pond_active
      state: 'off'
    - condition: template                   # temp
      value_template: '{{ (states("sensor.weather_temperature") | int) > 1 }}'
  action:
    - entity_id: switch.ds1_q2_13
      service: homeassistant.turn_off

and despite input_boolean.pond_active having the value ‘on’ it executed the action. After specifying the entity_id in quotes, it didnt trigger anymore. So I am confused because there are plenty of examples where entity_id is not quoted, but in conditions (https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/scripts/conditions/) they are quoted, so when is quoted required ? In this case they were apparently needed but I have also other cases, is it luck they work without quotes ?

2

Entity ids never need quotes, something else was wrong with your configuration. I have no idea why some of the examples on that page have quotes around them.

1 Like
3

Rule 3. You have double quotes inside single quotes here:

value_template: '{{ (states("sensor.weather_temperature") | int) > 1 }}'

Try it the other way round:

value_template: "{{ (states('sensor.weather_temperature') | int) > 1 }}"
4

As tom mentioned, put the double quotes on the outside. Just as an aside, during a bout of everything crashing after an upgrade I thought I should go through my own code and clean it up. One line at a time I found a good default was to use double quotes on the outside of statements even if there is nothing quoted inside. It seems to work well and also keeps my code consistent.

5

It’s also the recommended standard…

https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/en/documentation_standards.html#templates