# SHAI — Home Assistant

> The open-source home-automation hub a person runs on their own hardware, and the one hub through which every brand they already own is reachable. Its REST API (states, service calls, history) is authorized with a long-lived access token the user creates on their own profile page. The recommended path for /smart-home: connect the hub, not each brand.

Canonical page: /integrations/home-assistant

## How SHAI connects to it
SHAI talks to it directly, with the key you paste. It is one of the tools SHAI has written up — what it costs, why it matters, what breaks without it — as `home-assistant` in the tool guide.

## What it needs
a key you paste, in Setup or on /connections.

## Where that was read
docs/tools/tools.json (home-assistant), verified 2026-09-16.

Connect it: /connections?tool=home-assistant