cs2mqtt

Introduction

This project allows you to integrate your Counter-Strike 2 game with Home Assistant by exposing it as an MQTT device. Its purpose is to enable you to automate your smart home based on in-game events and information, enhancing your overall gaming experience.

cs2mqtt is cross-platform and can run locally on your gaming machine or any server device.

Architecture

cs2mqtt receives its data from the built-in Counter-Strike Game State Integration engine. This integration is created by Valve and is safe to use and will not be flagged by anti-cheat systems such as VAC or FACEIT.

flowchart LR;
    CS2(Counter-Strike 2
     game instance)
    C2M(((**cs2mqtt**)))
    HA(Home Assistant
     MQTT integration)

     CS2 -- Game state data in JSON format over HTTP(s) --> C2M
     C2M -- MQTT messages --> MQTT(MQTT broker)
     MQTT --> HA

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Internally, cs2mqtt keeps track of the current state of every connected Counter-Strike game instance. Inside the Counter-Strike game, every game state change will trigger the game to send a full payload containing both the changed and unchanged state data. cs2mqtt compares the received data to its in-memory cache, updates the cache accordingly, and asynchronously submits the changed data as MQTT messages to the MQTT broker.

flowchart LR;
    Endpoint(((**cs2mqtt**
     HTTP
     ingestion endpoint)))

    Endpoint -- Game state data --> GameStateService

    GameStateService -- Push new data to observer --> AvailabilityMqttPublisher
    GameStateService -- Push new data to observer --> GameStateMqttPublisher
    GameStateService -- Push new data to observer --> HomeAssistantDevicePublisher

    AvailabilityMqttPublisher -- Maintain availability (online/offline) for every sensor ---> MqttClient
    GameStateMqttPublisher -- Send game state data on distinct sensor topics ---> MqttClient
    HomeAssistantDevicePublisher -- Use Home Assistant MQTT device discovery protocol to automatically create Home Assistant devices and sensors for each data provider. ---> MqttClient

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Counter-Strike as a Home Assistant MQTT device

If the MQTT integration is installed, cs2mqtt will automatically create MQTT devices using the MQTT Discovery protocol, with all values configured as sensors.

System availability

On startup, when cs2mqtt connects to the MQTT broker, it publishes an online message to cs2mqtt/status. It also sets a Last Will and Testament (LWT) for the MQTT broker to publish an offline message to this topic if it loses connection or terminates unexpectedly. On graceful shutdown, cs2mqtt will publish an offline message to this topic before disconnecting.

Device availability

When a Counter-Strike 2 game instance submits data for the first time, cs2mqtt will automatically create an MQTT device for it, as described above, and publish online messages to cs2mqtt/{steamId64}/+/status topics. If a player disconnects from a game server, the topics related to player_state, map, and round will immediately be set to offline. When a player closes their Counter-Strike 2 game, there is no data transmitted, and there's nothing to indicate they've quit. As a result, cs2mqtt listens for heartbeats and eventually sets the entire device to an offline availability state once the timeout is reached.