Frigate Camera Control Bridge

Generic sidecar for a single Frigate instance. The container reads Frigate configuration from /api/config, discovers cameras from go2rtc and direct ffmpeg.inputs[].path stream URLs, then exposes light and siren controls through Home Assistant MQTT Discovery plus an emergency HTTP fallback GUI.

Design

• One image works for Podman now and Kubernetes later.
• Runtime configuration is environment-based; no Frigate config mount is needed.
• The sidecar waits for Frigate startup and retries /api/config.
• The sidecar periodically refreshes /api/config, so added or removed cameras can update MQTT Discovery without a container restart.
• On startup it runs a safe all-off by default, sets switch entities to OFF, and publishes retained MQTT state.
• Home Assistant MQTT Discovery payloads include semantic MDI icons for all-off, siren, red-blue/strobe, and white-light entities.
• Alarms and lights have default auto-off timers: siren 180s, red-blue/strobe 300s, white light 600s. The GUI timer is rendered from a backend timestamp, so page refreshes do not reset it.
• Siren ON actions require a browser confirmation in the fallback GUI.
• If ffmpeg.inputs[].path points at rtsp://127.0.0.1:8554/..., the sidecar treats it as a go2rtc gateway and resolves the real camera URL from go2rtc.streams.
• If Frigate uses a direct non-loopback stream URL in ffmpeg.inputs[].path, the sidecar uses that direct URL and does not resolve go2rtc in parallel.
• In env mode, missing MQTT or camera credentials are startup errors; the sidecar does not look up credentials in Quadlets or Frigate config.
• The fallback GUI listens on 5011 by default because 5001 may already be used by Frigate.
• GUI languages use standard gettext files: locale/<lang>/LC_MESSAGES/*.po and .mo.

Environment

Variable	Meaning
FRIGATE_NAME	Instance name, for example frigate-main.
FRIGATE_URL	Frigate API URL, for example http://frigate-main.example.test:5000.
FRIGATE_PUBLIC_URL	Optional public GUI URL used by camera stream links, for example a reverse proxy URL. If omitted, stream links use FRIGATE_URL.
FRIGATE_CAMERA_PATH_TEMPLATE	Optional camera page path or full URL template, defaults to /#{camera_quoted}. Available placeholders: {camera}, {camera_quoted}, {frigate_url}, {frigate_public_url}.
MQTT_HOST, MQTT_PORT	MQTT broker.
MQTT_USER, MQTT_PASSWORD	MQTT credentials.
DEFAULT_CAMERA_USER, DEFAULT_CAMERA_PASSWORD	Default credentials for cameras discovered from Frigate.
BASE_TOPIC	MQTT base topic, for example frigate_camera_control/frigate-main.
DISCOVERY_PREFIX	Home Assistant MQTT Discovery prefix, usually homeassistant.
UI_LANGUAGE	Default GUI and HA entity language, defaults to en.
HTTP_PORT	Fallback GUI port, defaults to 5011.
HTTP_TOKEN	Optional HTTP GUI/API token.
FRIGATE_REFRESH_SECONDS	Frigate config refresh interval, defaults to 300; 0 disables it.
SNAPSHOT_RETRY_SECONDS	Retry interval while a snapshot is missing, defaults to 600.
SNAPSHOT_REFRESH_SECONDS	Refresh interval after snapshots are available, defaults to 3600.
SNAPSHOT_LIVE_ON_GUI	Fetch a fresh Frigate snapshot when the GUI loads, defaults to true.
STARTUP_ALL_OFF	Send safe OFF commands during startup, defaults to true.
AUTO_OFF_SIREN_SECONDS	Siren auto-off, defaults to 180.
AUTO_OFF_RED_BLUE_SECONDS	Red-blue/strobe auto-off, defaults to 300.
AUTO_OFF_WHITE_LIGHT_SECONDS	White-light auto-off, defaults to 600.

Build

docker build -t frigate-camera-control-bridge:1.0 .
docker build -f Dockerfile.dev -t frigate-camera-control-bridge:dev .

Run

Podman Quadlet example:

examples/podman-quadlet/

Docker Compose example:

examples/docker-compose/

Kubernetes sidecar example:

examples/kubernetes/

Local check:

docker run --rm \
  -e FRIGATE_NAME=example \
  -e FRIGATE_URL=http://frigate:5000 \
  -e MQTT_HOST=mqtt.local \
  -e MQTT_USER=user \
  -e MQTT_PASSWORD=password \
  -e DEFAULT_CAMERA_USER=admin \
  -e DEFAULT_CAMERA_PASSWORD=password \
  -p 5011:5011 \
  frigate-camera-control-bridge:1.0 --check

HTTP GUI

http://<frigate-ip>:5011/
http://<frigate-ip>:5011/?lang=pl
http://<frigate-ip>:5011/api/actions
http://<frigate-ip>:5011/snapshot/<action_id>.jpg
http://<frigate-ip>:5011/healthz
http://<frigate-ip>:5011/readyz

If HTTP_TOKEN is set, pass ?token=<token> or the X-Bridge-Token header.

Manual Commands

/app/frigate-camera-control-bridge.py --list
/app/frigate-camera-control-bridge.py --check
/app/frigate-camera-control-bridge.py --all-off
/app/frigate-camera-control-bridge.py --action frigate_main_camera_a_red_blue off

Languages

1. Add locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/.
2. Copy frigate_camera_control_bridge.po from locale/en/LC_MESSAGES/.
3. Translate msgstr.
4. Run python3 tools/compile_gettext.py locale.
5. Rebuild the image. The GUI will discover the new language automatically.

Kubernetes Notes

• Put the bridge container in the same pod as Frigate, or point FRIGATE_URL at the Frigate service.
• Use readinessProbe on /readyz.
• Pass secrets through env vars from Secret.
• Keep /var/lib/frigate-camera-control-bridge on a small persistent volume if stale Home Assistant discovery cleanup should survive pod recreation.