HACS is the add-on that turns Home Assistant from a closed box into an open one. Officially the Home Assistant Community Store, it is a third-party manager that bolts a store interface onto your sidebar, letting you browse, install and update integrations and dashboard cards built by the community rather than hunting through GitHub and copying files by hand. Despite the name, it sells nothing: everything in it is free and open source.

Quick Answer

HACS, the Home Assistant Community Store, is a custom integration that adds a UI for installing and updating community-built integrations and Lovelace dashboard cards that are not part of the official Home Assistant release. It needs a free GitHub account to work, and it opens up hundreds of community extensions. It is powerful but optional, aimed at users comfortable adding custom code.

What HACS actually does

Out of the box, Home Assistant ships with a large but fixed set of official integrations. HACS extends that by giving you a managed way to install the wider universe of community work. It handles three things cleanly: discovering what is available, installing it from its GitHub repository, and keeping it updated when the author pushes a new version.

Two broad categories live in there. The first is custom integrations, code that connects Home Assistant to a device, service or feature the core does not yet support. The second is custom dashboard cards, the Lovelace components that change how your interface looks and behaves. Both used to mean downloading files and dropping them into the right folder manually. HACS replaces that with a few clicks and a tidy update list.

How you install it

HACS is itself a custom integration, so you add it once and then use it to add everything else. In current versions you go to Settings, then Devices and Services, choose Add Integration and search for HACS. You then link a free GitHub account: HACS shows a code, you paste it into the GitHub authorisation page and approve the connection.

The GitHub step is not optional and catches people out. HACS pulls projects from GitHub repositories, and an unauthenticated account is throttled to a handful of API requests an hour, far fewer than HACS needs. A registered account lifts that limit, which is why the link is required rather than a nice-to-have. Once connected, a HACS entry appears in your sidebar and the store is ready.

When you actually need it, and a caution

You need HACS the moment you want something the official integrations do not cover, which for most enthusiasts happens quickly: a niche device, a slicker dashboard card, or a community fix that lands before official support does. If your setup runs entirely on built-in integrations and you are happy with it, you can skip HACS entirely.

The caution is worth taking seriously. HACS installs community code that runs inside your Home Assistant, and poorly maintained add-ons can cause instability. If you are new or you prize rock-solid uptime above flexibility, hold off until you are comfortable. For everyone tinkering with a growing smart home, though, it quickly becomes one of the first things they install. The smart home and appliances range at Evetech covers the devices HACS integrations commonly connect to, and the accessories best sellers round out the sensors and hubs that fill out a setup.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is HACS free?

Yes. Despite being called a store, HACS sells nothing. It is free and open source, and so is everything you install through it. You only need a free GitHub account to use it.

Why does HACS need a GitHub account?

HACS downloads projects directly from GitHub repositories. Unauthenticated access is rate-limited to about 60 requests an hour, far below what HACS needs, so linking a free account lifts that ceiling and lets it work properly.

Is HACS safe to use?

It is widely trusted, but it does run community-written code inside Home Assistant, which carries some risk. Stick to well-maintained, popular add-ons, and if you value maximum stability over flexibility you may prefer to wait before installing it.

What can I install with HACS?

Mainly two things: custom integrations that add support for devices and services the core does not cover, and custom Lovelace cards that change how your dashboards look and behave. Hundreds of each are available.

HACS unlocks the wider Home Assistant ecosystem, and that ecosystem is only as good as the devices you connect to it. Explore the smart home range at Evetech to build out a setup worth automating.