How to Add Marketplace (Formerly HACS) to the Home Assistant Sidebar

I keep seeing the same question from people who upgraded to Home Assistant 2026.11: where did HACS go? The Home Assistant Community Store is now Marketplace, and you can open it under Settings → Marketplace when you’re signed in as an administrator. I liked having HACS on the left. Here’s how I put Marketplace back there, just below Systems.

If you only want to check for updates

Open Settings → Updates. That’s where available updates for installed Marketplace projects appear alongside your other updates. The count on Settings is still there whether or not you add a sidebar shortcut. If that’s what you used HACS for, you’re done.

Install Custom Sidebar

In Settings → Marketplace, open Browse and search for Custom Sidebar by elchininet. Open the result and select Install. On your first visit, review and accept the Marketplace community content notice before installing anything. I already had Custom Sidebar installed for Developer Tools, so I could go straight to the sidebar file.

The two YAML snippets

1. Load the plugin once. On a fresh installation, add the following to configuration.yaml. If you already have a frontend: section or an extra_module_url: list, merge the entry into the existing section. If Custom Sidebar already works for you, skip this first snippet.

frontend:
  extra_module_url:
    - /hacsfiles/custom-sidebar/custom-sidebar-plugin.js

When you change configuration.yaml, check the configuration in Developer Tools → YAML, then restart Home Assistant to load the module.

2. Add the sidebar shortcuts. In your Home Assistant configuration directory, create or edit www/custom-sidebar-config.yaml. This example includes Marketplace and the optional Developer Tools shortcut. If you already have an order: list, copy just the entries you need into it. Put Marketplace after the item you want it to follow. Mine goes after Systems.

order:
  - new_item: true
    item: Marketplace
    icon: mdi:store
    href: /marketplace
    hide: '[[[ !user_is_admin ]]]'

  - new_item: true
    item: developer_tools
    name: Developer Tools
    icon: mdi:hammer
    href: /config/developer-tools
    bottom: true

The hide line shows the Marketplace shortcut only to administrators. Home Assistant controls access to the page itself. For Developer Tools, bottom: true puts the link down by Settings. Leave out that second entry if you only want Marketplace. You can see how I placed Developer Tools in my sidebar configuration.

Refresh and check the shortcut

Save the sidebar file and refresh your browser. Click Marketplace on the left. The catalog should open on Browse. I only changed the sidebar file on my setup, so a browser refresh was all it took. If the shortcut is missing, first check whether the same account can open Marketplace from Settings. Then check the filename and make sure the entry sits under your existing order: list.

Watch it on my Home Assistant

The video shows where the Marketplace link lands and how Developer Tools sits at the bottom of my sidebar. If you’re also working on the dashboards themselves, here’s how I added seasonal touches to our existing screens.