# Custom sentences and intents for chaining and delaying intents

README.md

Here are a couple of custom sentences and custom intents that will handle the following scenarios in Home Assistant's Assist:

• "turn on the bathroom light and then turn on the bathroom fan"
• "turn off the living room heating in 10 minutes"

Installation

• copy the contents of custom_sentences.yaml to <your config folder>/custom_sentences/en/chain_delay.yaml
• append the contents of configuration.yaml to <your config folder>/configuration.yaml
• restart HA (mandatory to reload the custom sentences)

After the restart, in any Assist session (voice or text) you can chain instructions using "and"/"and then"/"then" or instruct HA to do something after some time.

Limitations

• due to this bug, you can only chain 2 sentences ("do this and then do that"). 3 or more will fail for some of the sentences.
• stuff like "tell me what is the state of the temperature sensor in 5 seconds" will work, but will do nothing, as delayed intents responses are lost.
• delaying intents depends on how well your STT engine can interpret numerals i.e. "3" instead of "three". If it doesn't want to transcribe numbers and it says it doesn't understand you, there's not much you can do.

or

configuration.yaml

intent_script:
  ChaninedSentences:
    speech:
      text: OK
    async_action: true
    action:
      - service: conversation.process
        data:
          agent_id: homeassistant
          text: "{{ sentence_1 }}"
          language: "{{ language }}"
      - service: conversation.process
        data:
          agent_id: homeassistant
          text: "{{ sentence_2 }}"
          language: "{{ language }}"

  HassDelayAction:
    speech:
      text: "I'll do it in {{number}} {{ time_units }}"
    async_action: true
    action:
      - delay: >
          {{ { time_units: number } }}
      - service: conversation.process
        data:
          agent_id: homeassistant
          text: "{{ sentence_1 }}"
          language: "{{ language }}"

custom_sentences.yaml

language: en
intents:
  ChaninedSentences:
    data:
      - sentences:
          - "{sentence_1} (then|and [then]) {sentence_2}"
        slots:
          language: en

  HassDelayAction:
    data:
      - sentences:
          - "({sentence_1};<in_time_interval>)"
        slots:
          language: en

      - sentences:
          - "({sentence_1};<in_time_interval>)"
        expansion_rules:
          time_interval: "(one|a[n]) {time_units}"
        slots:
          number: 1
          language: en

      - sentences:
          - "({sentence_1};<in_time_interval>)"
        expansion_rules:
          time_interval: "(one|a[n]) half [of] [an] hour"
        slots:
          number: 30
          time_units: minutes
          language: en

lists:
  sentence_1:
    wildcard: true
  sentence_2:
    wildcard: true
  number:
    range:
      from: 1
      to: 500
  time_units:
    values:
      - in: second[s]
        out: seconds
      - in: minute[s]
        out: minutes
      - in: hour[s]
        out: hours
        
expansion_rules:
  time_interval: "{number} {time_units}"
  in_time_interval: "(in <time_interval> [from now]|<time_interval> from now)