WTH Do I have to go to a strange forum to search for Blueprints?

Month of "What the heck?!"
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I don’t know how much this will resonate with people. Blueprints have really helped my automation game. No longer do I have to have “what happens when someone enters” be a separate automation from “what happens when someone exits”. Stuff like that. Amazing.

However the whole discovery experience is very “developer UX”. It should be a first party solution and not a bolt-on of the forums.

I will describe to you, however, my experience searching for Blueprints the first time.

Click on “Import Blueprint”. Internal monologue: I hope there is a way to find blueprints in this import thing. I don’t know how to import something, but we will see.

Presented with “Blueprint Address”. Me: Ok, I don’t know the address? Blueprints have addresses? AHA! There is a “view blueprints on the community forum!”

Arrive at the forums. Me: Ok, this looks like a list of blueprints. I don’t care about any of these. How do I search? Are there categories? Aha, a search button.

Search for “motion light”. Me: Ok, why am I getting results that aren’t blueprints? Did I do something wrong? Aha, if I click on search there is a “In Blueprints Exchange” option. Try again.

Click on any blueprint listing. Me: Ok, each post is completely different. Where is the download link? What is the short description / long description / implementation details. Some people document the journey of their development. Some people post almost nothing. Sometimes the download link is in a reply, sometimes in the original post. Sometimes there is no link and it’s just the code.

Madness. I didn’t even get into the inconsistency of bringing in blueprints, the versioning story, etc. This needs investment - it is one of the most powerful parts of Home Assistant and it’s terribly difficult to use and I suspect lots of people aren’t using it because of that.

The experience should be a first-party discovery UI with consistent places to find certain data (like in Add-ons) and discovery / import should be one cohesive experience instead of two separate things.

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So you want something like HACS for blueprints?

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HACS for blueprints would be awesome. The discoverability and consistency of the presentation because of the requirements to get into HACS helps a lot.

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It was proposed, partially written, and rejected, so I agree awesome, but not happening… (FYI)

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There is another WTH for this an Frenck even replied to that in regards to HACS.

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I was just clarifying what they wanted, I don’t actually use blueprints. I like to write my own automations customised for my use cases.

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This WTH is written very much from a perspective of the consumer of the blueprint. I agree the sharing process could be better. But let’s not forget many blueprints are made by regular users, tinkerers, not developers. Some of these users will not have github accounts to host their code on. Some will have spent most of their available time to get the underlying automation to work, most of what was left in making that into a blueprint, and don’t want to spend more time on adding detailed documentation or complying with specific templates.
I think it is a great idea to make the process of creating and sharing blueprints easier. And it would be awesome if those improvements also make it easier for other users to find those blueprints. But let’s keep the barrier for sharing as low as possible.

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HACS is not excluding other ways of sharing.
It is just setting a framework for presenting, downloading and installing the code.
Some of the things you request.

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Yup, you are right. Clicking that my: link in the blueprint exchange is really hard to figure out, and searching for what you want is really hard as well. Stuff like this should exist.
Tips on Searching for Answers & Duplicate Topics in the Forum.

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@Sir_Goodenough is this a reply to my post or to the OP? The point I was trying to make is that I don’t want to force blueprint authors to add more metadata and comply with specific templates etc in order to make finding blueprints easier. I am not sure how your reply relates to that?
As for your first remark, I think part of the OP’s point is that some posts in the Blueprints forum have a my: link but some don’t, and it’s that inconsistency that they want to be addressed.
I definitely see value in something like an AI chat blueprint search function inside HA. To which you can describe the functionality you desire, and that will find you relevant existing blueprints, using knowledge about your configuration to make sure you can actually use them. I do not, however, want to get there by making more restrictive rules on how to share blueprints.

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I really like this WTH, if it goes the path of HACS-styling, you could even refine your search for blueprints that work with your devices. Touches on the WTH’s about suggesting things to users as well.