From 85f33978e73a28df88955db52d8ccdb7557b5290 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: "J. Nick Koston" <nick@koston.org>
Date: Wed, 6 May 2026 06:23:35 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] [core] Skip external component update on `esphome clean`
 (#16268)

---
 esphome/__main__.py           |  5 +++--
 tests/unit_tests/test_main.py | 26 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/esphome/__main__.py b/esphome/__main__.py
index f4a276b74c..825a502dbf 100644
--- a/esphome/__main__.py
+++ b/esphome/__main__.py
@@ -2301,8 +2301,9 @@ def run_esphome(argv):
     CORE.config_path = conf_path
     CORE.dashboard = args.dashboard
 
-    # For logs command, skip updating external components
-    skip_external = args.command == "logs"
+    # Commands that don't need fresh external components: logs just connects
+    # to the device, and clean is about to delete the build directory.
+    skip_external = args.command in ("logs", "clean")
     config = read_config(
         dict(args.substitution) if args.substitution else {},
         skip_external_update=skip_external,
diff --git a/tests/unit_tests/test_main.py b/tests/unit_tests/test_main.py
index 0b96000a57..4ab7bb3344 100644
--- a/tests/unit_tests/test_main.py
+++ b/tests/unit_tests/test_main.py
@@ -5038,6 +5038,32 @@ def test_run_esphome_non_bundle_skips_extraction(tmp_path: Path) -> None:
     assert result == 2
 
 
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    ("command", "expected_skip"),
+    [
+        ("logs", True),
+        ("clean", True),
+        ("compile", False),
+        ("config", False),
+        ("run", False),
+        ("clean-mqtt", False),
+    ],
+)
+def test_run_esphome_skip_external_update_per_command(
+    tmp_path: Path, command: str, expected_skip: bool
+) -> None:
+    """read_config is invoked with skip_external_update=True only for commands
+    that don't need fresh external components (logs, clean)."""
+    yaml_file = tmp_path / "device.yaml"
+    yaml_file.write_text("esphome:\n  name: test\n")
+
+    with patch("esphome.__main__.read_config", return_value=None) as mock_read:
+        run_esphome(["esphome", command, str(yaml_file)])
+
+    mock_read.assert_called_once()
+    assert mock_read.call_args.kwargs["skip_external_update"] is expected_skip
+
+
 def test_get_configured_xtal_freq_reads_sdkconfig(tmp_path: Path) -> None:
     """Test reading XTAL_FREQ from sdkconfig."""
     CORE.name = "test-device"