Try a placeholder
Give it some variables and a placeholder, and it shows what comes out: at each step of the chain, and whether that is text, a number, true or false, or a list. It runs the card's own code, so what you see here is what a card gets. Nothing leaves your browser.
Whether a value is text or a number matters when the placeholder is the whole value of an option - columns: '[[count]]' gets the number 3. Inside a longer piece of text everything becomes text. Both are shown below.
To make a template from cards you already have, use the template builder.
The sample house
A web page has no Home Assistant, so the steps that ask one - area, state, friendly_name and the rest - read this made-up house instead. Use these entity ids, as a variable or written straight in the placeholder. To try them against your own Home Assistant, paste the sandbox dashboard into a new dashboard.
| Entity | State | What else it has |
|---|---|---|
light.kitchen_ceiling | on | Named Kitchen ceiling, brightness 180. Its device, Hue ceiling by Signify (model Hue White), is in the Kitchen on the Ground floor. Labelled Evening lights. |
sensor.garden_temperature | 14.6 | Device class temperature, in °C. Its device, Garden sensor by Aqara, is in the Back Garden, which is on no floor. |
binary_sensor.bedroom_window | off | Device class window, icon mdi:window-closed-variant. No device; the entity itself is in the Bedroom (icon mdi:bed) on the First floor. |
input_select.house_mode | night | Options day, night and away. |
Every one of them can have its state read here. On a real card, |state only answers for entities the card lists in rebuild_on. And translate needs your Home Assistant's language, so here it gives back what it was given.