Should ha_search_entities support parameter-free listing, or is ha_get_overview the canonical path?

[Patch76]

ha_search_entities currently requires at least one search parameter (query, domain, device_class, or area_id). This is likely intentional — returning all entities unconstrained on large instances is a real context-size risk.

However, there are use cases where an agent needs a flat, filterable list of all entities — e.g. to audit a domain or build a picker — without knowing a search term upfront. Other MCP servers in the ecosystem address this with a dedicated list_entities(domain?, detailed?, fields?) tool.

Two questions for the maintainers:

1. Is ha_get_overview(detail_level="full", domains="x") the intended path for this use case, or would relaxing ha_search_entities to allow domain-only filtering without a query make sense?
2. Is there appetite for a separate ha_list_entities tool, or does that conflict with the tool-count philosophy?

Happy to implement whichever direction is preferred, or close this if ha_get_overview is considered sufficient.

[sergeykad]

Thanks for raising this. Digging into it, we found the discoverability issue was actually at the schema level. The listing mode (empty query with domain_filter) already existed, but query: str marked it as required and the listing example was buried mid-docstring, so nothing in the schema or the lede told a caller that omitting a search term was valid.

Q1 (relax ha_search_entities for domain-only filtering):
The cleanest fix was to make query genuinely optional at the schema level (query: str | None = None) rather than treating "" as a magic sentinel. PR #1004 does that plus a docstring rewrite. ha_get_overview(domains="x") still exists for a different shape (categorized/summary view).

Q2 (separate ha_list_entities tool):
Not needed. The existing tool now expresses the listing mode in its signature: ha_search_entities(domain_filter="calendar") (no query key). A second tool would conflict with the consolidation guidance in AGENTS.md.

Routing validated against LM Studio + Qwen3.5 9B across 5 scenarios. With the new signature the model adopts the cleaner form, dropping query when it's not needed, which confirms the schema change reaches clients.

PR: #1004

[Patch76]

Closed by #1004