Build View Assist dashboards without writing YAML.

PanelKit is a visual layout editor for View Assist views in Home Assistant. Pick your device, start from a template, drop in the cards you already use, copy the YAML into a manual card. Everything runs in your browser.

Open the builder Source on GitHub Free, no account, nothing leaves your device.
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Assist

The tab set template: five views sharing one navbar. Tap the navbar to switch.

How it works

  1. Pick your screen and a starting point. Choose an Echo Show 5, Echo Show 8, Lenovo ThinkSmart View, Fire tablet or a custom size, then start from a template. There is a full tab set for home, camera, music, lights and calendar that shares one navbar.
  2. Arrange it right in the preview. Drag blocks to move them, drop one on another to swap them, pull an edge or corner to make a block bigger and its neighbours make room. No rows, columns or sizes to set up. Every change can be undone.
  3. Add blocks. View Assist elements like the assist bar, status icons, messages and timers, plus popular HACS cards. Each one has a small form instead of a YAML snippet.
  4. Add more views. Switch between views in the bar at the top, add one from a template or the whole tab set, reorder them. A navbar set to follow your views gets one route per view, and one click puts it on every view.
  5. Add it to Home Assistant. The builder walks you through it: which cards to install from HACS, where to click, what to name the view, and how to open it on your device. The generated view is a single custom:button-card using the standard variable_template and body_template, so it behaves like the views that ship with View Assist.

Blocks

  • Title, status icons, assist barView Assist
  • Message and timersView Assist
  • Satellite image and web pageView Assist
  • Camera feedcore or Advanced Camera Card
  • Calendar agendaHome Assistant core
  • Lights with brightnessMushroom
  • Intent cardslayout-card
  • Navbar with routes and stylesnavbar-card
  • Chips rowMushroom
  • Template cardMushroom
  • Media playermini-media-player
  • Clock and weatherclock-weather-card
  • TileHome Assistant core
  • Dim overlayCSS
  • Any other card as raw YAMLcustom

What it saves you

Navigation that works

Link targets are written once. A view name becomes a dashboard path, a path stays as it is, script.x or scene.x runs it, a URL opens it. Navbar routes, chips and buttons all use the same field.

Mistakes explained and fixed

A navbar covering content, a missing assist bar, a duplicate view name. Each problem says what is wrong and comes with a one-click fix, before you paste anything into Home Assistant.

A real preview

You edit directly on a preview of your screen, at its real aspect ratio, using the same CSS grid the generated card does. What you arrange is what you get.

Questions

Does PanelKit need access to my Home Assistant instance?
No. It is a single HTML page that runs entirely in your browser and produces text. There is no login, no API call, no telemetry. Your work is kept in local storage on your own device.
Does it know my entities?
Not yet. Entity IDs are typed in by hand. Copying them from Home Assistant developer tools is the quickest way.
Can I edit a view I already have?
Not in this version. Importing existing YAML is the next thing on the list.
Which cards do I need installed?
button-card is always required, since every View Assist view is built on it. Anything else depends on the blocks you use, and the builder lists the HACS repositories your view needs above the generated YAML.
Is this part of View Assist?
No. PanelKit is an independent tool. View Assist is by dinki and the credit for the view format belongs there.

Support

PanelKit is free and open source. If it saved you an evening of grid debugging, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. Bug reports and card requests are just as welcome on GitHub.

Open the builder