JUST ARRIVED
Branches on the canvas. Flows top to bottom.
The last releases opened up the blocks: Choose and If-then show their branches as cards, flows can run top to bottom, and touch screens got menus of their own.
Also new: a "+" on an output that already leads on asks whether the step goes in between or in parallel, dragging a connection onto a free card pulls it into the branch, a toolbar toggle shows card text in Home Assistant's own wording, and when Home Assistant refuses to save, FLODE marks the card red and takes you there. Every change, release by release, in the changelog.
MADE OF HOME ASSISTANT
Nothing new to learn. It's the editor you already know.
Every trigger, condition and action opens in Home Assistant's own editor, with the same forms, pickers and dialogs as in Settings. FLODE adds the canvas, so you see how it all connects. Repeat and Parallel stay single blocks; Choose and If-then show their branches as cards.
FLODE saves exactly what Home Assistant's own editor would save. Uninstall FLODE and every automation keeps working. A step that calls an action or entity Home Assistant does not have turns red on the canvas.
alias: Evening light
triggers:
- trigger: sun
event: sunset
offset: "-00:15:00"
conditions:
- condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.evening_mode
state: "on"
actions:
- action: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.bedroom
data:
brightness_pct: 40
- if:
- condition: state
entity_id: switch.string_lights
state: "off"
then:
- action: switch.turn_on
target:
entity_id: switch.string_lights
mode: restart
RUNS AND RELATIONS
Know what happened. And why.
Runs. Home Assistant's trace timeline next to the canvas, the path drawn on the cards, the branch that ran marked, and Run from here for any step, with the data of the last trigger. Relations. Conflicting automations, self-triggering ones, chains, missing entities, and where is this used? for any entity.
AI HELP
Stuck? Ask.
If you have set up an AI in Home Assistant (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, Ollama and others) and chosen it as the default for AI tasks, FLODE can use it. It uses Home Assistant's own ai_task, no extra key, no extra service. Without an AI task these buttons simply do not appear; everything else works the same.
Explain a run. Why an automation did or did not do its job, in plain words. Assistant. Ask about the open flow, find mistakes, get a better version (shown first, one step to undo). Create with AI. Describe what should happen, get a draft built from your real entities.
EVERYTHING ELSE
Small things that add up.
INSTALL
Three steps. Then it's in your sidebar.
- HACS → search for FLODE → Download.
- Restart Home Assistant.
- Settings → Devices & services → Add integration → FLODE. It appears in the sidebar (admins only).
Requires Home Assistant 2026.3 or newer. To install by hand, unzip flode.zip from the latest release into config/custom_components/flode/.
Since October 2026 FLODE uses calendar versions YY.M.N: year, month, and the number of the release within that month. 26.10.15 is the 15th release of October 2026. Every release, feature or fix, gets the next number. Tags, release titles and the version badge are just the number, without a leading "v". Calendar versions count as newer than every 3.x version, so updates through HACS work as before.
Coming from FLODE 2.x? Your automations open and save as before. FLODE 3 replaced the old editor: the simulation gave way to real runs and Run from here, and FLODE follows Home Assistant's language and theme instead of its own settings. Details in the changelog.
HALL OF FAME
Made better by you.
FLODE gets better with every bug report and every idea. A big thank you to everyone who tests, reports and keeps asking for more:
- @bartbutenaers: the most reports of all, from wires and branch dragging to touch and context menus, always with precise steps.
- @Hedda: the push to English as the main language, the Lit rebuild and the labels like Home Assistant.
- @srsly88: nested AND/OR conditions, the save dialog and the sidebar editor.
- @jlpnea:
choose blocks that render all the way down and script.stop.
- @NullScope, @pkejval: parallel steps after
scene.create and the vertical flow.
- @Home-Wizz, @JoHeyr, @oscarallo, @HL-Apprentice, @DeKaN, @Daniel-wendan, @bramcardon-alt, @dgarrison63: reports and ideas that made it into FLODE.
Found something or missing a feature? Open an issue. You might be next on this list.
CREDITS
Built on C.A.F.E.
FLODE is a fork of C.A.F.E. by Federico Zivolo. It never overwrites anything it was not asked to save. Back up your automations before big edits anyway.
How FLODE reads, draws, edits, writes and runs automations is described in docs/architecture.md. FLODE is an independent project and is not affiliated with Home Assistant or Nabu Casa. Licensed under Apache 2.0.
