Installation

Requirements

There are no external dependencies or prerequisites for LCARdS.

For the best visual experience, use HA-LCARS themes.

Breaking change from previous versions

LCARdS has moved from a HACS Frontend Plugin to a HACS Integration. If you have an existing installation, follow Migrating from the Frontend Plugin before installing.

Install via HACS

1. Open HACS in Home Assistant
2. Go to Integrations and search for LCARdS
3. Click Download and confirm
4. Restart Home Assistant
5. Go to Settings → Integrations → Add Integration and search for LCARdS
6. Click through the setup — no configuration is required

LCARdS is now active. It automatically:

• Loads lcards.js on every Home Assistant page
• Registers the LCARdS Config sidebar panel

No configuration.yaml changes are required.

Manual Installation

1. Download lcards.zip from the latest GitHub release
2. Extract the contents into config/custom_components/lcards/ (the directory should contain manifest.json and __init__.py directly — not a nested lcards/lcards/ folder)
3. Restart Home Assistant
4. Go to Settings → Integrations → Add Integration → LCARdS

Configuration

After installation, LCARdS can be configured from the integration card:

Settings → Integrations → LCARdS → Configure

Option	Default	Description
Show sidebar panel	On	Display the LCARdS Config entry in the Home Assistant sidebar. Disable if you prefer a cleaner sidebar — the integration stays active and all cards continue to work.

Changes take effect immediately — no restart required.

The LCARdS Config Panel

The LCARdS Config Panel is registered automatically by the integration. Access it via the LCARdS Config entry in the Home Assistant sidebar.

From the Config Panel you can:

• Create all required helpers in one click (alert mode, sounds, sizing)
• Customise Alert Mode colour palettes per alert level
• Configure sound schemes and per-event overrides
• Browse theme tokens and CSS variables live
• Explore installed packs

If you don't want it visible all the time, toggle Show sidebar panel off in the integration options — it can be re-enabled at any time.

See LCARdS Config Panel for full details.

Migrating from the Frontend Plugin

If you have a previous LCARdS installation (installed as a HACS Frontend plugin), you must remove it before installing the integration.

Step 1 — Remove the old HACS Frontend plugin

1. Open HACS → Frontend
2. Find LCARdS and click the three-dot menu → Remove
3. Confirm removal

Step 2 — Remove any custom HACS repository entry

If you added LCARdS as a custom repository:

1. Open HACS → ⋮ (menu) → Custom repositories
2. Find the LCARdS entry and delete it

Step 3 — Remove the panel_custom config block

If you added a panel_custom: block to configuration.yaml to enable the sidebar panel, remove it — the integration handles this automatically now.

# Remove this entire block from configuration.yaml:
panel_custom:
  - name: lcards-config-panel
    sidebar_title: LCARdS Config
    sidebar_icon: mdi:space-invaders
    url_path: lcards-config-panel
    module_url: /hacsfiles/lcards/lcards.js

Step 4 — Restart Home Assistant

A full restart is required to clear the old frontend registration.

Step 5 — Install via HACS Integrations

Follow Install via HACS above.