Why didn’t my automation run?

It’s a common post on the HA Discord where people are confused as to why their automation isn’t running, they’ve got a trigger, and a few conditions, and … nothing happens.

trigger:  
  - platform: numeric_state  
    above: '22'  
    entity_id: sensor.temperature  
condition:  
  - condition: time  
    after: '22:00:00'  
    before: '08:00:00'  
  - condition: state  
    entity_id: climate.environment  
    state: cool  

This is typically because people assume that the triggers are continually checked. They’re not, they’re checked when they become true, and that’s the point the conditions are checked.

The problem here is that if the temperature rises above 22 before 22:00, or when the climate device isn’t set to cool, the automation won’t run.

How to solve this?

“Simple” - duplicate the conditions and triggers:

trigger:  
  - platform: numeric_state  
    above: '22'  
    entity_id: sensor.temperature  
  - platform: time  
    at: '22:00:01'  
  - platform: state  
    entity_id: climate.environment  
    to: cool  
condition:  
  - condition: numeric_state  
    above: '22'  
    entity_id: sensor.temperature  
  - condition: time  
    after: '22:00:00'  
    before: '08:00:00'  
  - condition: state  
    entity_id: climate.environment  
    state: cool  

Now it doesn’t matter what order things happen in, once the last thing becomes true the automation’s actions will run.