[Bug] Headless doesn't work

[andreas-bulling]

What happened?

I followed the instructions for a headless build server but the following command throws an error:

esphome-device-builder ~/esphome-configs

The only solution I could find is to install the esphome pip package - which pulls in all the dependencies for a web-based dashboard/builder again.

Dashboard version

2026.5.0

How did you install it?

PyPI

Where is it running?

Local — Linux

Relevant logs / errors

Anything else?

No response

[Alsoff]

This it the error I get when running esphome-device-builder

(.venv) alsoff@LTP01:~/esphome_device_builder$ esphome-device-builder config
2026-05-22 07:54:22.096 ERROR (MainThread) [root] Uncaught exception Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/alsoff/esphome_device_builder/.venv/bin/esphome-device-builder", line 8, in <module> sys.exit(main()) ^^^^^^ File "/home/alsoff/esphome_device_builder/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/esphome_device_builder/__main__.py", line 250, in main from esphome.core import CORE # noqa: PLC0415 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'esphome'

[andreas-bulling]

Exactly. And this error requires installation of the esphome package, which pulls a lot more stuff in that one doesn't want in a headless setup...