---
title: Shell Command
description: Instructions on how to integrate Shell commands into Home Assistant.
ha_category:
  - Automation
ha_iot_class: Local Push
ha_release: 0.7.6
ha_quality_scale: internal
ha_codeowners:
  - '@home-assistant/core'
ha_domain: shell_command
ha_integration_type: integration
---

This integration can expose regular shell commands as services. Services can be called from a [script] or in [automation].
Shell commands aren't allowed for a camel-case naming, please use lowercase naming only and separate the names with underscores.

[script]: /integrations/script/
[automation]: /getting-started/automation/

## Configuration

```yaml
# Example configuration.yaml entry
# Exposes service shell_command.restart_pow
shell_command:
  restart_pow: touch ~/.pow/restart.txt
```

{% configuration %}
alias:
  description: Give the shell command a name (alias) as a variable and set the command you want to execute after the colon. e.g., `alias`:`the shell command you want to execute`.
  required: true
  type: string
{% endconfiguration %}

The commands can be dynamic, using templates to insert values for arguments. When using templates, shell_command runs in a more secure environment which doesn't allow any shell helpers like automatically expanding the home dir `~` or using pipe symbols to run multiple commands. Similarly, only content after the first space can be generated by a template. This means the command name itself cannot be generated by a template, but it must be literally provided.

Any service data passed into the service call to activate the shell command will be available as a variable within the template.

`stdout` and `stderr` output from the command are both captured and will be logged by setting the [log level](/integrations/logger/) to debug.

## Execution

The `command` is executed within the [configuration directory](/docs/configuration/).

<div class='note'>

If you are using [Home Assistant Operating System](https://github.com/home-assistant/operating-system), the commands are executed in the `homeassistant` container context. So if you test or debug your script, it might make sense to do this in the context of this container to get the same runtime environment.

</div>

A `0` exit code means the commands completed successfully without error. In case a command results in a non `0` exit code or is terminated after a timeout of 60 seconds, the result is logged to Home Assistant log.

## Examples

### Defining multiple shell commands

You can also define multiple shell commands at once. This is an example
that defines three different (unrelated) shell commands.

```yaml
# Example configuration.yaml entry
shell_command:
  restart_pow: touch ~/.pow/restart.txt
  call_remote: curl http://example.com/ping
  my_script: bash /config/shell/script.sh
```

### Automation example

This is an example of a shell command used in conjunction with an input
helper and an automation.

{% raw %}

```yaml
# Apply value of a GUI slider to the shell_command
automation:
  - alias: "run_set_ac"
    trigger:
      platform: state
      entity_id: input_number.ac_temperature
    action:
      service: shell_command.set_ac_to_slider

input_number:
  ac_temperature:
    name: A/C Setting
    initial: 24
    min: 18
    max: 32
    step: 1

shell_command:
  set_ac_to_slider: 'irsend SEND_ONCE DELONGHI AC_{{ states("input_number.ac_temperature") }}_AUTO'
```

{% endraw %}