Manual event received

The Manual event received trigger is useful when you want an automation to react to an event on the Home Assistant event bus. Use it when an integration, a script, or an API call fires an event and you want to match the event type, event data, or the user who triggered it.

Using this trigger from the user interface

If you prefer building automations visually, Home Assistant walks you through this trigger step by step. You pick what to watch, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.

To use this trigger in an automation:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. In the When section, select Add trigger.
4. Select the type of trigger to add.
5. Select Manual event received.
6. In Event type, enter the event name you want to match.
7. Optional: In Event data, add event data that must match.
8. Optional: Under Limit to events triggered by, select a user.
9. Select Save.

Options in the UI

Using this trigger in YAML

If you work directly in YAML, or you want to know exactly what Home Assistant does under the hood, this section has the technical reference. It lists the field names you use in YAML, their types, and which ones are required.

In YAML, use trigger: event. A basic example looks like this:

trigger: event
event_type: shopping_list_updated

This runs when the shopping_list_updated event is fired.

Options in YAML

YAML supports matching event data, full event context, multiple event types, and limited templates.

Good to know

• This trigger listens for events on the Home Assistant event bus. It does not watch an entity state.
• In YAML, you can use one event type or a list of event types.
• In the UI, you can limit the trigger by user. In YAML, you can also match other context fields.
• Home Assistant does not allow the state_reported event with this trigger.
• Limited templates in event_type, event_data, and context are evaluated only when the trigger is set up.

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Go to Settings > Automations & scenes, create a new automation, and add this trigger. Save the automation, then change the state of the targeted entity to watch the trigger fire on your actual entitiesAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more].

For this trigger, there is no target entity to change. To test it, fire an event from Settings > Developer tools > Events.

More examples

Real scenarios where this trigger fires in automations and scripts. Copy any example and adapt it to your setup.

Automation: send a notification when the shopping list changes

If you want to know when the shopping list changes, this automation listens for the related event and sends a message to your phone.

• Trigger: Manual event received
• Event type: shopping_list_updated
• Action: Send a notification message
  • Target: My Device (notify.my_device)

alias: "Notify me when the shopping list changes"
triggers:
  - trigger: event
    event_type: shopping_list_updated
actions:
  - action: notify.send_message
    target:
      entity_id: notify.my_device
    data:
      message: "The shopping list was updated."

Automation: refresh an entity after an automation reload

If you reload automations while testing, this automation can refresh an entity right after the reload event is fired.

• Trigger: Manual event received
• Event type: automation_reloaded
• Action: Update entity

alias: "Refresh an entity after automations reload"
triggers:
  - trigger: event
    event_type: automation_reloaded
actions:
  - action: homeassistant.update_entity
    target:
      entity_id: sensor.system_status

Still stuck?

The Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the trigger you’re using and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.

Related triggers

These triggers work well alongside this one:

• Home Assistant: Triggers when Home Assistant starts up or shuts down.

• State: Triggers when the state or an attribute changes.