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jbaruch/govee-h6056

Ground truth for Govee Flow Plus Light Bars (H6056): phantom segments, bar-to-segment mapping, API auth and rate limits. Language-agnostic facts; Kotlin/Ktor reference example.

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SKILL.mdskills/govee-h6056-control/

name:
govee-h6056-control
description:
Controls Govee H6056 Flow Plus light bars (smart LED lights) via cloud REST API with correct segment-to-bar mapping (Yankee=0-5, Golf=6-11), phantom-segment awareness (12-14 return 200 OK but do nothing), correct "off" semantics (rgb=(1,1,1), not (0,0,0)), and rate-limit guidance (~7 req/min sustained → pair with iot-actuator-patterns-kotlin debounce). Use when the user wants to control Govee H6056 light bars, change LED light colors or brightness, set bar segment colors, or automate Govee smart lighting scenes.

Govee H6056 Control

Use this skill whenever you need to light up Govee Flow Plus light bars (H6056).

Device facts the cloud docs don't tell you

  • Product form: 2 physical bars that register as ONE API device.
  • API claims 15 segments (segmentedColorRgb, min=1, max=15).
  • Physical truth: 12 segments. Indices 12, 13, 14 are phantom. The API returns 200 OK when you address them; no light turns on. If you don't slice your ranges correctly, your "all on" commands will look broken on stage.
  • Bar mapping (top → bottom on each bar):
    • bar_a (call it Yankee): segments 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
    • bar_b (Golf): segments 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
    • Within each bar, segment[0] is at the TOP. Bottom-up fill on Yankee = lighting segments 5 → 0.
  • Discovery is NOT mDNS. Call GET /router/api/v1/user/devices with your API key to enumerate SKUs and device IDs.

API contract

  • Base URL: https://openapi.api.govee.com
  • Auth: header Govee-API-Key: <key> (NOT bearer, NOT query param)
  • Control endpoint: POST /router/api/v1/device/control
  • Capability for per-segment color:
    • type = "devices.capabilities.segment_color_setting"
    • instance = "segmentedColorRgb"
    • value = {"segment": [<indices>], "rgb": <packed_int>} where rgb = (r shl 16) or (g shl 8) or b
  • Rate limits: nominal ~10k/day. Sustained traffic above ~7 req/min trips 429s silently — Govee often returns 200 but the device doesn't update. Pair every Govee call with iot-actuator-patterns-kotlin's debounce controller (min-interval 1.2 s).

"Off" semantics

rgb=(0,0,0) packs to 0x000000. Some firmware paths treat that as a no-op and retain the prior segment state. To reliably clear a segment, send rgb=(1,1,1) — near-black but non-zero. The user can't perceive the 1/255 brightness.

On session shutdown, always issue an explicit all-segments command:

Runtime.getRuntime().addShutdownHook(Thread {
    runBlocking { client.setSegments((0..11).toList(), Triple(1, 1, 1)) }
})

Minimal Kotlin example

import io.ktor.client.*
import io.ktor.client.engine.cio.*
import io.ktor.client.request.*
import io.ktor.client.statement.*
import kotlinx.coroutines.runBlocking
import java.util.UUID

class GoveeClient(
    private val apiKey: String,
    private val sku: String,        // "H6056"
    private val device: String      // from GET /router/api/v1/user/devices
) {
    private val client = HttpClient(CIO)
    private val base = "https://openapi.api.govee.com"

    suspend fun setSegments(segments: List<Int>, rgb: Triple<Int, Int, Int>): Int {
        val (r, g, b) = rgb
        val packed = (r shl 16) or (g shl 8) or b
        val segArr = segments.joinToString(",", "[", "]")
        val payload = """
            {"requestId":"${UUID.randomUUID()}",
             "payload":{"sku":"$sku","device":"$device",
              "capability":{"type":"devices.capabilities.segment_color_setting",
                            "instance":"segmentedColorRgb",
                            "value":{"segment":$segArr,"rgb":$packed}}}}
        """.trimIndent()
        return client.post("$base/router/api/v1/device/control") {
            header("Content-Type", "application/json")
            header("Govee-API-Key", apiKey)
            setBody(payload)
        }.status.value
    }

    companion object {
        // Use these constants, NOT raw indices, to stay phantom-safe and bar-aware
        val YANKEE = (0..5).toList()
        val GOLF = (6..11).toList()
        val ALL_PHYSICAL = (0..11).toList()
    }
}

fun main() = runBlocking {
    val client = GoveeClient(
        apiKey = System.getenv("GOVEE_API_KEY"),
        sku = "H6056",
        device = System.getenv("GOVEE_H6056_DEVICE")
    )
    // Light Yankee green, Golf red:
    client.setSegments(GoveeClient.YANKEE, Triple(0, 200, 0))
    client.setSegments(GoveeClient.GOLF, Triple(200, 0, 0))
}

Bottom-up fill on Yankee

Because segment[0] is the TOP, a bottom-up "thermometer" fill means lighting from the high-index end:

fun yankeeBottomUp(lit: Int): IntRange = (6 - lit) until 6   // total=6

// lit=1 → segment 5 (just the bottom)
// lit=3 → segments 3, 4, 5
// lit=6 → segments 0..5 (full bar)

See render-progress-bar-kotlin for the full gradient pattern.

Discovery

suspend fun discoverDevices(client: HttpClient, apiKey: String): List<Map<String, Any?>> {
    val resp = client.get("https://openapi.api.govee.com/router/api/v1/user/devices") {
        header("Govee-API-Key", apiKey)
    }
    // resp.bodyAsText() → {"code":200, "data":[{sku, device, deviceName, ...}], ...}
    // Parse with kotlinx.serialization or Jackson; extract entries where sku == "H6056"
    TODO("parse JSON, return entries")
}

Anti-patterns

  • ❌ Hardcoding 15 as the segment count — sends 3 wasted commands to phantom segments.
  • ❌ Splitting "thirds" as 0..4, 5..9, 10..14 for a semaphore — middle band spans Yankee + Golf, top band addresses phantoms.
  • ❌ rgb=(0,0,0) for "off" — silently no-ops on some firmware paths.
  • ❌ Calling the API inline from a 30 fps producer loop without debounce — Govee throttles silently, your producer blocks on network latency, demo framerate drops to 3 fps.
  • ❌ mDNS discovery — Govee H6056 doesn't broadcast mDNS. Use the cloud /devices endpoint.

Required environment

export GOVEE_API_KEY=<your-developer-api-key>   # from developer.govee.com
export GOVEE_H6056_SKU=H6056
export GOVEE_H6056_DEVICE=<the device-id field from /devices response>

skills

govee-h6056-control

SKILL.md

README.md

tile.json