Standards

To ensure that the documentation for Home Assistant is consistent and easy to follow for both novice and expert users, we ask that you follow a very strict set of standards for developing the documentation.

General Documentation#

  • The language of the documentation should be American-English.
  • Don't put two spaces after a period and avoid the "Oxford comma".
  • There is no limit for the line length. You are allowed to write in a flowing text style. This will make it easier to use the GitHub online editor in the future.
  • Be objective and not gender favoring, polarizing, race related or religion inconsiderate.
  • The case of brand names, services, protocols, integrations and platforms must match its respective counterpart. e.g., "Z-Wave" not "Zwave", "Z-wave", "Z Wave" or "ZWave". Also, "Input Select" not "input select" or "Input select".
  • Do not use ALL CAPITALS for emphasis - use italics instead.
  • All examples containing Jinja2 templates should be wrapped outside of the code markdown with the {% raw %} tag.

Integration and Platform Pages#

  • The Configuration Variables section must use the {% configuration %} tag.
  • The Configuration Variables section is only used for YAML configuration.
  • For describing UI Variables the {% configuration_base %} section can be used.
  • Configuration variables must document the requirement status (false or true).
  • Configuration variables must document the default value, if any.
  • Configuration variables must document the accepted value types (see Configuration variables details).
    • For configuration variables that accept multiple types, separate the types with a comma (i.e. string, integer).
  • All examples should be formatted to be included in configuration.yaml unless explicitly stated.
    • Use capital letters and _ to indicate that the value needs to be replaced. E.g., api_key: YOUR_API_KEY or api_key: REPLACE_ME.
  • Integration and platform names should be a link to their respective documentation pages.

Example configuration block

{% configuration %}
some_key:
description: This is a description of what this key is for.
required: false
type: string
default: Optional default value - leave out if there isn't one
{% endconfiguration %}

YAML and Templates#

We have a separate styling guide for YAML and the use of Jinja2 templates inside that YAML.

YAML Style Guide

Renaming Pages#

It can happen that an integration or platform is renamed, in this case the documentation needs to be updated as well. If you rename a page, add an entry to the _redirects file as shown below. Please consider to add details, like release number or old integration/platform name, to the page in a note.

---
...
/getting-started/scripts /docs/scripts
---

Adding a redirect also applies if you move content around in the documentation.

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