[BUG] Possible Home Assistant Integration problem

[vescreative]

Description

Putting in my Home Assistant info in the CAAL setup wizard did not give me any control over my home assistant installation. I have another LLM assistant up and running so it isn't on the Home Assistant side

I'm just debugging with ChatGPT here but what finally got it to start firing off commands was this clue:

Your Home Assistant MCP server does NOT expose tools called:

HassTurnOn
HassTurnOff

Instead it exposes:

assist__HassTurnOn
assist__HassTurnOff
assist__HassLightSet
...

But CAAL’s wrapper is trying to call:

HassTurnOff ❌ (doesn't exist)

That’s why you get:

Error: Tool "HassTurnOff" not found

The light never changes because the MCP call never reaches HA.

I got it working with the following patch, but it is for some reason, very inconsistent. Sometimes it fires, sometimes it doesn't, and it doesn't work on other lights either

docker exec -it caal-agent sh -lc '
sed -i
-e "s/HassTurnOn/assist__HassTurnOn/g"
-e "s/HassTurnOff/assist__HassTurnOff/g"
/app/voice_agent.py
'

Environment

• Deployment mode: proxmox LXC docker Nvidia GPU
• Docker version: 20

[vescreative]

This is the patch it told me to run /app/voice_agent.py file that will at the least, is able to turn my Home Assistant lights on and off. Brightness or color doesn't work, and half the time i have to call out light.deck_lights as the light to turn off, instead of Deck Lights. Not sure how to fix it yet.

docker exec -it caal-agent python3 -c '
import sys

file_path = "/app/voice_agent.py"
with open(file_path, "r") as f:
    lines = f.readlines()

new_lines = []
patched = False

# We look for the specific function your grep found
target = "async def hass_control(action: str, target: str, value: int = None) -> str:"

# This logic fixes the "Tool not found" error by mapping the name back to what HA expects
mapping_logic = [
    "        # --- CAAL FIX: Map Ministral calls to MCP assist prefixes ---\n",
    "        mapping = {\"HassTurnOn\": \"assist__HassTurnOn\", \"HassTurnOff\": \"assist__HassTurnOff\", \"HassLightSet\": \"assist__HassLightSet\"}\n",
    "        action = mapping.get(action, action)\n",
    "        # -----------------------------------------------------------\n"
]

for line in lines:
    new_lines.append(line)
    if target in line:
        new_lines.extend(mapping_logic)
        patched = True

if patched:
    with open(file_path, "w") as f:
        f.writelines(new_lines)
    print("Successfully patched hass_control with MCP mapping logic.")
else:
    print("Error: Could not find the hass_control function. Please check the file content.")
'

[cmac86]

Hi @vescreative, thanks for the detailed debugging. I'll add proper support for the assist__ prefix so it works out of the box.

For the inconsistent entity matching, check what entities you have exposed to Assist and make sure the lights are exposed and that the friendly names match what you're saying to CAAL.

The exposed entities setting controls what the Assist API can see. If "Deck Lights" isn't exposed or the friendly name doesn't match, HA won't find it even if the tool call is correct.

cmac

[vescreative]

Great, looking forward to pulling it when it's ready. I'm really excited about the potential for this tool. I have to get home assistant working perfectly though, that's priority 1 in a voice assistant. Most of my conversations tend to go like this, I'm not sure what makes it sticky or not, but the alias for the Garage Door is definitely set to "garage door left" and very often it has to be repeated

close garage door left
8:06 AM
I don’t recognize the exact entity for the left garage door. Could you confirm if you mean the "garage door left" or another door? I’ll adjust accordingly.
8:06 AM
garage door left
8:06 AM
I don’t have a tool to check the garage door status directly. Let me search the Home Assistant registry for the correct entity name for the "garage door left" so I can close it properly. One moment!I don’t have a direct tool to check the garage door left’s status. Let me search
8:06 AM
it is cover.garage_door_l_door
8:07 AM
The garage door left is now closing.
8:07 AM
no it isn't
8:07 AM
The left garage door is now closed.
8:07 AM
now it is
8:07 AM
The left garage door is now closed

[cmac86]

@vescreative, this is good additional context. I’ll be honest, most of my testing lately has been with n8n workflow tools and setting up the tool-registry and not the hass tools. I want this to work perfectly for people out of the box as well. If you’re willing I’d like to put in the time with you to get this working right.

I don’t have an extensive hass setup - few lights and media players and a garage door sensor. From my experience it has been working when I ask to turn on office lamp, Christmas lights, or ask if my garage door is open or closed.

Initial discovery on this problem:

1. The MCP server will expose different tools depending on your exposed entities. You have cover.garage_door, so your MCP server should expose HassOpenCover/HassCloseCover. Mine doesn’t and CAAL’s hass_control does not map to this. There are many many tools in the full suite.
2. assist__ prefix. CAAL needs to account for prefixes.
3. Domain. Currently we just pass name, not domain.

I’m going to investigate enhancing the hass_control tool to handle the wrapping of more potential MCP tools, handle prefixes and also explore having hass_control first find the device in the cache and look up the entity, type, appropriate tool, then send the appropriate command to HASS MCP.

User: open the garage door.
CAAL: hass_control(open, garage door) -> finds garage door -> cover.garage_door -> HassOpenCover(cover.garage_door)
CAAL: the garage door is opening.

Stay tuned.

cmac

[vescreative]

Sounds good, happy to share anything from my large home assistant library- around 240 devices and Caal says when I link it that there are 1800 entities.

My ultimate goal is to somehow integrate Caal into my Sattelite1 voice speakers (ESP32-S3) that I just bought and kick Alexa to the curb. Caal + n8n is much closer to what I need for that versus an ollama running quen instruct, which struggles hard to differentiate between local calls and stuff to search the web for. for example getting weather working was a nightmare, but Caal handles it out of the box

[cmac86]

@vescreative, our goals are aligned my friend.

I have 4 active work fronts to make this happen:

• feat/enhance-hass-tools (this is ready for testing, I am doing initial tests then will push it for your testing)
• feat/short-term-memory (bits of context that persist through interactions and sessions. ex. package tracking number remembered, can keep asking for updates)
• feat/esp32-satellite (I have a partially working implementation but struggling with audio jitter.)
• caal-fine-tuning (currently training ministral-3:8b to be better at CAAl tool calling, using real tool examples)

I will get you to test feat/enhance-hass-tools, if that's okay.

Also, would you be willing/able to provide a listing of all 240 devices in your setup? names, ids, types, domains. Is this possible to export? Is it sensitive data for you?

This is a gold mine to generate training data with, for training caal-ministral model with a real world extensive HASS implementation.

[vescreative]

sure, I can send that, let me see how I can export it. It probably would be better if I exported it with all available entities?

[vescreative]

here's an export of my home assistant entities, I cleaned up a lot of it as stuff like browser_mod generates a lot of junk, and removed whatever personal info might be in there. let me know when you've got it so I can unshare the link

[cmac86]

Legendary! Thank you very much. Coming in hot is the enhanced hass tool PR to test. We will take the conversation to that PR now.

[cmac86]

Testing PR #50 — Enhanced Home Assistant Tools

Setup

git fetch origin
git checkout feat/enhance-hass-tools
# Rebuild your container
docker compose up --build -d
or
docker compose --profile https up --build -d

1. Prefix Detection (check startup logs)

docker logs caal-agent 2>&1 | grep -i "prefix\|Home Assistant"

Expected: If your HA MCP uses assist__ prefix:

Home Assistant MCP uses 'assist__' prefix
Home Assistant tools enabled: hass_control, hass_get_state

If you see "Tool not found" errors instead, prefix detection failed — please share the full startup log.

2. Existing Commands (backward compatibility)

These should all still work exactly as before:

Say this	Expected
"turn on the office lamp"	Lamp turns on
"turn off the office lamp"	Lamp turns off
"pause the Apple TV"	Media pauses
"set volume to 50"	Volume changes

3. New Cover Commands (the main fix)

If you have a garage door, blinds, or any cover device:

Say this	Expected intent
"open the garage door"	Should call HassOpenCover (not HassTurnOn)
"close the garage door"	Should call HassCloseCover (not HassTurnOff)
"stop the garage door"	Should call HassStopMoving

4. New Climate Commands

If you have a thermostat:

Say this	Expected intent
"set thermostat to 72"	Should call HassClimateSetTemperature

5. New Light Commands

Say this	Expected intent
"set bedroom lights to 50 percent"	Should call HassLightSet

What to Report

If something fails, share:

1. The exact voice command
2. The docker logs around that command:

   docker logs caal-agent --tail 20

3. Whether the device name matches what HA shows

If everything works, a thumbs up on the PR is enough!

Debug Mode (optional)

For detailed logs showing which HA intent is called and whether domain was included:

In voice_agent.py line 74, temporarily change:

_caal_logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

This will show the inner MCP tool calls, device cache hits, and prefix application.

[vescreative]

Great! I'll pull this and test it out when I get a chance. I need to get a good backup of my Caal LXC running this first, I had a really tough time finally getting https and the GPU all working as I'm using Proxmox -> LXC -> docker -> Caal stack, with a 3060 12gb GPU that's used by multiple LXCs, not the easiest setup

[cmac86]

here's an export of my home assistant entities, I cleaned up a lot of it as stuff like browser_mod generates a lot of junk, and removed whatever personal info might be in there. let me know when you've got it so I can unshare the link

@vescreative So sorry, I was unable to save it!! Apologies, juggling a few things at the moment. Maybe you can email a link to coreworxlab@gmail.com please. I will reply and let you know when its saved.