Which claude code implementation to use - It seems there are 6 so far

Third party integrations
1

From asking Claude, it seems there are 6 different claude code implementations (apps) to select from if I want to connect claude code to home assistant. Some are forks. Here’s what it says. Can I get any real-world experiences? And no, I’m not going to try out all 7.

  1. heytcass/home-assistant-addons — a terminal environment in the HA dashboard that integrates Anthropic’s Claude Code CLI, this being the original Claude Terminal app, plus a companion Go CLI (ha-ws-client-go) for direct WebSocket access to entities and automations. GitHub

  2. dkmaker/hass-claude-code — runs Claude Code with a web terminal, full HA API access, and a built-in MCP server that exposes structured tools for smart-home interaction, including indexed HA docs and optional semantic search. GitHub

  3. michaelansel/claude-code-homeassistant — a more unusual one: runs Claude Code as an automated agent with “c3po” multi-agent coordination, connecting it to a remote coordinator so it can collaborate with other agents rather than just being an interactive terminal. GitHub

  4. rubicon/claude-code-ha and ESJavadex/claude-code-ha — essentially the same app under different maintainers: runs Claude Code CLI in a browser-based terminal in the dashboard, bundling the ha and gh CLIs, git, and Python. The ESJavadex version is a fork that traces back to heytcass’s original Claude Terminal app, with Javier Santos adding persistent packages, tmux persistence, and multi-arch support. GitHub - rubicon/claude-code-ha: Claude Code Addon For Home Assistant · GitHub +2

  5. Bobsilvio/ha-claude — broader in scope: a multi-provider smart-home AI assistant app supporting 23+ providers including Anthropic Claude, controllable via Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord or a built-in web UI, with per-agent model/personality/tool configuration. GitHub

  6. jantimon/ha-addon-ssh — Claude Code bundled inside an existing SSH/terminal app: a fork of the Advanced SSH & Web Terminal app that includes Claude Code as an AI coding assistant for optimizing HA config, writing automations, and troubleshooting, launching automatically in the config directory. github

2

Here is the thing with AI - these “implementations” are just the output of someones prompt.
If you just make a long-lived API key and give it to Claude, you are done. Just start a new session and say “I want you to manage my HA instance for me. This is my API key: ”. You will get better results than trying to push someone else’s setup onto yours.

If you pay for Claude Code for other projects, then using it for HA management is a good idea.

But you can reduce costs, improve security, and gain more flexibility by installing Hermes and getting an account on openrouter.ai. Make sure you set it up in its own VM on your local LAN. I’m using an open-source model (Kimi, Quen, or Deepseek), and it costs me about $2 a month to manage HA and handle just about any other general AI query, with great results. I gave Hermes both shell access via SSH and an API key, and now I rarely touch HA again. All admin and ops are done with simple English prompts. I love it!