ESPHome

brAIn works on every ESPHome device you have — edits its YAML, validates it, installs it over the air, reads its logs — and you ask for it in a sentence. There is no ESPHome screen in brAIn’s panel: the ESPHome dashboard already is one, and a second copy of it inside brAIn was clutter (the tab was removed in 2.10). Everything it did is still there, as the tools Claude uses from the chat and the terminal.

What you can ask for

From the chat or the terminal (or a voice agent set to Whole house or Full admin):

What ESPHome devices do I have, and which need a firmware update?
Add a DHT22 on GPIO4 to the garage sensor and install it.
Why does the porch light keep dropping off Wi-Fi?
Update every device that has firmware waiting.
Make a new ESP32 device for the shed with a relay on GPIO26.
Change the Wi-Fi password in my ESPHome secrets.

What happens behind each kind of request:

Listing devices gives every file in /config/esphome with its chip and board, whether it’s online, the firmware it’s running against the version the dashboard would build now (2026.8.0 → 2026.9.0), and which Home Assistant device it is. Shared files (packages and includes) are listed too, marked as such.
Changing a device edits the YAML, validates it, reads ESPHome’s own error if there is one, fixes it, and compiles and flashes over the air — “done” means flashed, not just compiled. A device that’s offline is compiled now and flashed by the dashboard when it comes back, and brAIn says so.
“Why” questions stream the device’s own log and read it.
A new device gets the file the dashboard’s wizard would write — a fresh API encryption key, OTA password and fallback hotspot, and Wi-Fi from your secrets. The first install onto a brand-new board still has to be over USB from the ESPHome dashboard itself; every one after that can be asked for.
Secrets are set without ever being read back. brAIn can list the names in secrets.yaml, never the values.
Deleting a device moves its file into archive/, exactly as the dashboard does. The device keeps running its firmware.
A stuck build can be cleared (“clean the build files for the garage sensor”), and a device can be compiled without flashing.

Safety

Every save is undoable. The file is snapshotted into the same edit journal before it’s written, so brain undo puts it back.
Your edits aren’t overwritten. If a file was saved from the ESPHome dashboard since brAIn read it, brAIn refuses to save over it.
Broken YAML is still saved — it’s your file — and brAIn says where the parser stopped.
Protected entities apply. Installing firmware acts on every entity a device carries, so a device holding anything on protected_entities is refused — install, upload, update and delete alike — naming the entity.

Who may use these tools

Who’s asking	What they get
The chat and the terminal	Everything above.
A voice agent set to Whole house or Full admin	Everything above.
A voice agent set to Voice assistant	None of the ESPHome tools.
Scheduled, unattended runs (cards, the Resident)	Read device files, validate them, read logs and check on a build. Writing, compiling, installing and deleting only ever happen because somebody asked.

How brAIn reaches the dashboard

brAIn edits /config/esphome directly, so editing never needs the dashboard. Building does — validate, compile, install and logs — because ESPHome’s toolchains don’t run inside brAIn’s container. brAIn finds the ESPHome add-on on its own and can reach its dashboard three ways:

Through Home Assistant’s ingress, the way your browser opens it. Current Supervisor versions no longer let one add-on open another’s dashboard with its own credentials, so this needs the esphome_ha_token option: a long-lived access token from a Home Assistant administrator. brAIn uses it only to ask Home Assistant for an ingress session.
The ESPHome add-on’s own port, if you gave it one under that add-on’s Network settings. Used automatically, but it only answers without a password when that add-on’s leave_front_door_open is on, which leaves the dashboard open to your whole network.
esphome_dashboard_url, for a dashboard somewhere else, e.g. http://192.168.1.20:6052.

brAIn speaks both the current ESPHome Device Builder (ESPHome 2026.9 and later) and the older dashboard, and works out which one it’s talking to by itself.

When none of the three can be reached, brAIn says exactly why and which setting ends it, file editing keeps working, and a device with a firmware update waiting can still be updated through Home Assistant’s own update entity.

Setup

Install and start the ESPHome add-on (ESPHome Device Builder), if you haven’t.
Create a long-lived access token as a Home Assistant administrator: your profile → Security → Long-lived access tokens.
Paste it into esphome_ha_token on brAIn’s Configuration tab and restart brAIn.
Ask — “what ESPHome devices do I have?” in the chat. If brAIn can’t reach the dashboard, the answer names the setting that’s missing.

Running the ESPHome dashboard somewhere else (a container on another machine)? Set esphome_dashboard_url instead of the token.