Where we talk
Discord, the community forum, and GitHub. Which place to use for what, and where the people of each area can be found.
Home Assistant has a few places where people meet. Each is good at something different. Picking the right one gets you a faster answer, and keeps the conversation where others can find it later.
| You want to | Go to |
|---|---|
| Ask a quick question, or meet other contributors | Discord |
| Get help with your own setup | The community forum |
| Report a bug | The issue tracker of the right repository on GitHub. See report a bug |
| Suggest a feature | Feature requests on GitHub |
| Discuss how Home Assistant is built | Architecture discussions on GitHub |
| Ask about a specific change | The issue or pull request itself |
| Join a community sync call | The events calendar |
Every area of this site has a "Who to talk to" section. This table brings them together, so you can see at a glance where the people working on something can be found.
The Home Assistant Discord is where contributors chat in real time. It's the quickest way to ask "where do I start?" or "is this a good idea?", and to get to know the people behind the project.
Contributor channels are hidden until you pick a role. In the sidebar, select Channels & Roles, and choose the roles that fit what you do. For example:
- I want to contribute dev skills to Home Assistant gives you the developer role. It opens the #developers channel and the other channels for development.
- Designers meet in #designers. This link takes you straight there.
- People testing the beta meet in #beta.
The channels for contributors:
| Channel | For |
|---|---|
| #developers | General development |
| #core | Core and integrations |
| #frontend | The frontend |
| #operating-system | Home Assistant OS, and the Supervisor |
| #apple-apps | The Apple apps |
| #designers | Design |
| #product-and-ux | Product and UX discussions |
| #user-researchers | User research |
| #documentation | The documentation |
| #language-leaders | Language leaders |
A few places on the server are for every contributor:
- Building in the open is the announcement channel for contributors. Follow it to see what is happening in the project.
- General coding support is where you ask when you are stuck on code.
- The project forum is for longer running projects, and for bigger topics the team is sprinting on.
The channel links on this site open the channel itself. They only work once you have joined the server.
Some areas also have their own threads, like the companion apps. The table above lists them.
A few habits that help:
- Ask your question directly, with enough context to answer it. "Can someone help?" gets fewer answers than the actual question.
- Discord is chat, and chat scrolls away. Anything that matters for a decision belongs on GitHub, where it stays findable.
- Don't ping people directly to ask for a review. See pull requests and reviews.
The community forum is the place for users helping users: setups, automations, and devices. It's also a great place to contribute without writing code. Answering questions is one of the most valuable things you can do. See Community.
This page is about the places where contributors work together. Looking for all the places where the Home Assistant community meets, like Reddit, Facebook, meetups, and regional communities? See where the community lives, or the community page on home-assistant.io.
All code, documentation, and decisions live on GitHub. Different kinds of conversations go to different places there.
Issues are for bugs: something that doesn't work the way it should. Each repository has its own issue tracker, so report a problem where the code lives. Report a bug helps you pick the repository, and explains what the forms ask and what happens after you report.
Issues aren't for support questions or feature ideas. The issue forms point you to the right place for those: the help page for support, and feature requests for ideas.
New ideas go to feature requests in GitHub discussions. Search first, and vote on an existing request instead of opening a duplicate. Pick the category that fits best, like Dashboards & cards or iOS & macOS. Explain the problem you want to solve, not only the solution. Other users vote and discuss, and the product team uses popular requests to shape the roadmap.
Questions about how Home Assistant is built, like a new type of entity or a rule for all integrations, start in the architecture repository. How architecture decisions are made explains how a discussion becomes a decision.
Once you're working on a change, the conversation about it happens in the pull request. Questions, review comments, and decisions about that change all stay together there.
Issues, pull requests, and discussions on GitHub are in English, so everyone can follow along. Home Assistant Core even has a bot that flags issues written in another language. It doesn't need to be perfect. If English isn't your first language, using a tool to help with grammar or translation is fine: the AI policy explains how.
The code of conduct applies in every one of these places. If you see something that isn't right, use the report or flag feature of the platform, or email the address on that page.