From 5838af646b5523ab51721f09306a5242a475115d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Samuel Sieb <samuel-github@sieb.net>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2024 23:43:11 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] allow defaults with no include vars (#6613)

---
 esphome/yaml_util.py | 5 +++--
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/esphome/yaml_util.py b/esphome/yaml_util.py
index c7aa78201f..06bfd8b217 100644
--- a/esphome/yaml_util.py
+++ b/esphome/yaml_util.py
@@ -321,8 +321,9 @@ class ESPHomeLoaderMixin:
             file, vars = node.value, None
 
         result = _load_yaml_internal(self._rel_path(file))
-        if vars:
-            result = substitute_vars(result, vars)
+        if not vars:
+            vars = {}
+        result = substitute_vars(result, vars)
         return result
 
     @_add_data_ref