---
title: Migrating from Go Automate
description: What changes when you move from Go Automate to ha-bridge.
---

Home Assistant Bridge replaces [Go Automate](https://github.com/timmo001/go-automate). The commands do the same things, but every command now goes through the bridge, so the bridge service must be running for actions as well as watchers.

## What happened to Go Automate

Go Automate was a Go CLI for triggering Home Assistant from key bindings, which later grew a socket bridge so status bars could share one connection for watching entities. Actions still opened their own connection each time, and anything else that needed Home Assistant called it directly with its own copy of the token.

Home Assistant Bridge is a rewrite in TypeScript with Effect, built around the bridge. One service owns the connection, and actions, reads and watches all go through its socket. Other apps can use the same connection through the [client library](/libraries/) instead of shelling out.

Go Automate is archived and no longer maintained, and its docs site now redirects here.

## Commands

Drop `go-automate ha` from the front, and `bridge` from the bridge commands:

| Go Automate | Home Assistant Bridge |
| --- | --- |
| `go-automate ha bridge serve` | `ha-bridge serve` |
| `go-automate ha bridge watch entity <entity_id>` | `ha-bridge watch entity <entity_id>` |
| `go-automate ha light toggle <name>` | `ha-bridge light toggle <name>` |
| `go-automate ha cover watch <name>` | `ha-bridge cover watch <name>` |
| `go-automate completion zsh` | `ha-bridge --completions zsh` |

The domain commands, their aliases, arguments and flags are unchanged. `camera snapshot` and `setup` are new. See [Commands](/reference/commands/) for the full list.

## Service and socket

| | Go Automate | Home Assistant Bridge |
| --- | --- | --- |
| User service | `go-automate-home-assistant-bridge.service` | `ha-bridge.service` |
| Socket | `$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/go-automate/home-assistant.sock` | `$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/ha-bridge/ha-bridge.sock` |
| Protocol | `get_entity` and `watch_entity` JSON requests | [Effect RPC](/reference/protocol/) |

Scripts that spoke Go Automate's socket protocol directly need moving to the [new protocol](/reference/protocol/) or the [client library](/libraries/).

## Config

You don't need to set anything up again. When `~/.config/ha-bridge/config.yml` doesn't exist, the bridge reads `~/.config/go-automate/config.yml` and copies it across.

Go Automate asked for your URL and token the first time it ran. Home Assistant Bridge doesn't prompt on its own; run `ha-bridge setup` instead.

## Output

Bar JSON has the same fields and key order, with two small differences:

- A `null` target temperature or tilt position is left out of `climate watch` and `cover watch` text, as if the attribute were missing.
- `<`, `>` and `&` are printed as they are, not as `\u003c`, `\u003e` and `\u0026`. JSON parsers read both the same way.

## Switching over

1. Stop and disable the old service:

   ```bash
   systemctl --user disable --now go-automate-home-assistant-bridge.service
   ```

2. [Install](/install/) Home Assistant Bridge, then make sure `ha-bridge.service` is running.
3. Update your key bindings, bar modules and scripts to the new commands.
4. Remove Go Automate.