Every example from documentation gives an error | Home Assistant | Page 1

livid briar Dec 13, 2024, 9:00 AM

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Hi, I installed Home Assistant 2 hours ago and I'm willing to try to send notifications to my phone when I ring the bell. No matter which example I pick from the docs, I get the error "Message malformed: Unable to determine action @ data['actions'][0]"

Here is my automation, which is literally the first example in the docs (https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/notifications/notifications-basic)

  - alias: 'Send Notification'
    trigger:
      ...
    action:
      - action: notify.mobile_app_cellulaire_de_theo
        data:
          message: "Notification text"```

Thanks a lot

rigid turtle Dec 13, 2024, 9:01 AM

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Where have you put this, in the ui?

livid briar Dec 13, 2024, 9:01 AM

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rigid turtle Where have you put this, in the ui?

There

rigid turtle Dec 13, 2024, 9:02 AM

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Well... Yeah, that's wrong

livid briar Dec 13, 2024, 9:02 AM

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Am I at the wrong place ? 🤣

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Oh ok haha

rigid turtle Dec 13, 2024, 9:02 AM

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If you delete everything except the last 3 lines (the second action onwards)

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Then delete the "-" and all the spaces before those lines

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And then 2 spaces to indent the final line

fading thicket Dec 13, 2024, 9:03 AM

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The action box expects just one single action

action: notify.mobile_app_cellulaire_de_theo
data:
  message: "Notification text"

livid briar Dec 13, 2024, 9:04 AM

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rigid turtle And then 2 spaces to indent the final line

it works!

fading thicket Dec 13, 2024, 9:04 AM

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The YAML in the docs is what you'd use if you wrote it directly into configuration.yaml, which you're not doing (and shouldn't do)

livid briar Dec 13, 2024, 9:05 AM

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Oh ok ! Is there another page in the docs where I can understand how everything works more properly ? 😅

fading thicket Dec 13, 2024, 9:05 AM

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Well, not really

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(it's a very yes but no situation)

rigid turtle Dec 13, 2024, 9:05 AM

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The general automations pages explain it better

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But still not great

fading thicket Dec 13, 2024, 9:05 AM

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The problem is that the docs don't really explain how the automation editor itself works, which is where you went "wrong" (but not really wrong)

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What you can do is just avoid the YAML view in the automation editor and build things purely in the UI - and then look at the YAML it creates to learn what the editor does

rigid turtle Dec 13, 2024, 9:07 AM

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Or vice versa, copy some yaml into the yaml view (for the whole automation, not just actions like you were doing - accessible from the top right menu) and then look at the ui version it corresponds to

fading thicket Dec 13, 2024, 9:07 AM

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Just remember to remove the initial automation: line

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(plus the - on the first line, and the other "stray" spaces)

hexed geodeBOT Dec 13, 2024, 9:08 AM

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YAML is the mark up language used by Home Assistant, consistent indenting (two spaces per level) is key. Here is a primer, and this explains multi-line templates. For validating YAML see YAML Lint.

fading thicket Dec 13, 2024, 9:08 AM

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YAML is something you absolutely need to learn ☝️

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Otherwise you're gonna get pissed off very fast

#Every example from documentation gives an error