GoHome Automation

Nix-native home automation with OpenClaw as the interface, plus beautiful Grafana dashboards.

GoHome by @joshp123 is a 'home automation for people who hate home automation software.' Born from frustration with Home Assistant's complexity — the YAML-to-UI migration, the NixOS community friction, the clunky Prometheus metrics — GoHome takes a radically different approach: no UI at all. Your OpenClaw agent is the interface. You talk to your house through Telegram, and the AI figures out the rest. The architecture is fully declarative via Nix. Plugins self-declare everything: their AGENTS.md (so your agent knows capabilities), proto definitions, metrics shapes, Grafana dashboard configs, and OAuth flows. Enable a plugin in your Nix config, run `nixos-rebuild switch`, and it just works. The system exposes gRPC endpoints and a CLI — your AI agent (Claude, GPT, whatever) decides how to use them. GoHome deliberately stays 'dumb' so the SOTA model can be smart. The Grafana dashboards are a highlight. Unlike Home Assistant's 2003-era graphs, GoHome plugins bootstrap beautiful, purpose-built Grafana dashboards automatically. Temperature trends, energy usage, device state histories — all rendered in clean, modern visualizations. Combined with the Roborock vacuum plugin (also by @joshp123), this is the most opinionated and complete Nix-native smart home stack in the OpenClaw ecosystem.

Tags: home, nix, grafana, automation

Category: home

Tips

  • Read the README rant — it explains the design philosophy and why certain decisions were made, which helps you work with the system rather than against it
  • Start with one plugin (like Roborock) to understand the plugin-bootstrapping pattern before adding more devices
  • Plugins self-declare their AGENTS.md — your OpenClaw agent discovers capabilities automatically at compile time, not through trial and error
  • Use `nixos-rebuild --rollback` freely during setup — the fully declarative approach means you can always go back to a working state
  • The Grafana dashboards auto-provision — don't try to configure them manually, just enable the plugin and the dashboards appear

Community Feedback

Home automation for people who hate home automation software. No UI, ever. OpenClaw is your interface. Talk to your house in Telegram. Your AI agent figures out the rest.

— GitHub

I tried to set up Home Assistant. It broke me. GoHome is what happens when you give up on fixing Home Assistant and just write something that works.

— GitHub

Nix-native home automation with OpenClaw as the interface, plus beautiful Grafana dashboards. The anti-Home-Assistant for Nix purists.

— OpenClaw Showcase

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to know Nix to use GoHome?

Yes. GoHome is built on NixOS and expects you to be comfortable with Nix flakes, nixos-rebuild, and declarative configuration. If you're not a Nix user, Home Assistant with the OpenClaw skill is a more accessible option.

How does it compare to Home Assistant?

GoHome is the opposite philosophy. HA has a UI-first approach with hundreds of integrations. GoHome has no UI — your AI agent is the interface. GoHome is fully declarative (Nix), while HA has moved away from YAML. GoHome is for Nix users who want AI-native home control.

Which devices does it support?

Device support comes through plugins. Currently available: Roborock vacuums, with more being developed. It's designed to be extended — each plugin is a self-contained Nix module with gRPC endpoints.

Can I use it alongside Home Assistant?

Yes, but it's designed as a replacement, not a complement. If you want both, you could run them on the same machine, but GoHome's philosophy explicitly rejects HA's approach. Pick the one that matches your style.