How to Install HACS on Home Assistant – Community Store (2026 Guide)

HACS (Home Assistant Community Store) is the community store for Home Assistant. It gives you one place to find, download and update thousands of custom integrations, themes and dashboard cards that never make it into the official store. If you have ever wanted a card or integration that Home Assistant does not ship with, chances are it lives in HACS. It pairs nicely with the official must-have add-ons we covered separately.

We first published this guide in 2021, and a lot has changed since then. HACS 2.0 arrived in 2024 with a rewritten interface, and the installation method for Home Assistant OS is completely different now. This is the fully updated version for 2026.

Before you start

• A working Home Assistant installation. If you are starting from scratch, see our Raspberry Pi install guide.
• A free GitHub account. HACS downloads everything from GitHub and needs to authenticate to avoid rate limits.
• Five minutes, and ideally a fresh backup.

The right install method depends on which flavor of Home Assistant you run. Not sure? Go to Settings > System > Repairs, open the three-dot menu in the top right, choose System Information and look for Installation Type. Most people run Home Assistant OS.

Install HACS on Home Assistant OS or Supervised

This is the official method since HACS 2.0. No SSH needed, everything happens in the UI.

1. Go to Settings > Add-ons and open the Add-on Store. On recent Home Assistant versions this menu is called Apps.
2. Click the three-dot menu in the top right and choose Repositories.
3. Paste https://github.com/hacs/addons and click Add, then close the dialog.
4. Refresh the page and find the new Get HACS add-on in the store. Open it and click Install.
5. Click Start. The add-on downloads HACS for you and stops on its own.
6. Open the add-on’s Log tab and confirm it finished without errors. Once it has, you can uninstall the Get HACS add-on. It is only a downloader.
7. Restart Home Assistant: Settings > System, then the power icon in the top right and Restart Home Assistant.

Install HACS on Home Assistant Container (Docker)

If you run Home Assistant in Docker, the download script is still the way to go. Run it inside the container:

docker exec -it homeassistant bash
wget -O - https://get.hacs.xyz | bash -
exit

Replace homeassistant with your container name if it differs. Then restart the container:

docker restart homeassistant

Install HACS on Home Assistant Core

For a bare Python (venv) installation, switch to the user that runs Home Assistant and run the same script from your configuration directory’s machine:

wget -O - https://get.hacs.xyz | bash -

Then restart Home Assistant.

Add the HACS integration

Downloading HACS only puts the files in place. Now you need to enable it:

1. Do a hard refresh in your browser: CTRL+SHIFT+R (or CMD+SHIFT+R on Mac). Without this, HACS often will not show up in the integration list.
2. Go to Settings > Devices & services.
3. Click + Add integration in the bottom right and search for HACS.
4. Read and tick the acknowledgment checkboxes, then click Submit.

Connect HACS to GitHub

HACS uses GitHub’s device authorization flow. It looks unusual the first time, but it is quick:

1. Home Assistant shows you a short device code. Copy it and keep the window open.
2. Open github.com/login/device in a new tab and sign in to GitHub.
3. Enter the code, click Continue, then Authorize HACS.
4. Go back to Home Assistant, click through the final dialog and hit Finish.

HACS now appears in your sidebar. Open it and browse away.

What changed since 2021

If you followed an older version of this guide, here is the short version of what is different now:

• The SSH + wget method is no longer the recommended route on Home Assistant OS. The Get HACS add-on replaced it.
• The integration page moved: Configuration > Integrations is now Settings > Devices & services.
• HACS 2.0 (released in 2024) brought a rewritten, much faster interface. Everything you can download now lives in a single searchable list instead of separate tabs.
• Updates for HACS itself and for everything you download through it now show up on the standard Home Assistant Settings > Updates page.

Troubleshooting

• HACS is not in the integration list. Restart Home Assistant first, then hard refresh the browser. This fixes it in almost every case.
• The Get HACS add-on is not in the store. Make sure the repository URL was added correctly (https://github.com/hacs/addons) and reload the page.
• GitHub rejects the device code. Codes expire after a few minutes. Cancel the dialog in Home Assistant and start the integration setup again to get a fresh one.
• Rate limit errors right after setup. HACS fetches a lot of metadata on first run. Give it 15 minutes and it sorts itself out.
• HACS disappeared after reinstalling Home Assistant. On Container and Core, re-run the download script after major rebuilds. Your HACS data and downloads are kept in the config folder.

What to install first

Once HACS is running, some good starting points: browse the frontend section for dashboard cards like card-mod and mushroom, and check our guides on must-have Home Assistant add-ons, recommended first steps in Home Assistant and integrations that improve daily life for inspiration on what to add next.