Raspberry pi 5 GPIO, I2C, SPI

I have been using my best google-fu to figure out WTF is going on with Node-Red and the RPI5 GPIO. I have found several references to various libraries and dependencies and some Nodes that appear to do what I want.

Somehow I have not been able to piece together anything that works. Broken links, install scripts fail, stuff just doesn't work, whatever.

What is the current state of PI5 GPIO access in Node-Red? I have a project where I need to connect a temp/humidity sensor (DHT22 or equivalent) to the PI5 as well as an I2C relay board. I need to have "local" control of these and pass them through using MQTT to my home assistant server. Normally I would just use ESPhome for the temp sensor, but this application does not allow it.

I don't use GPIO on Pi's and never really have, it was always too easy to release the Pi's magic smoke. However, there was a recent thread about Pi GPIO and the latest version of the OS. Possibly that may help.

I looked around and the last thread I found was from 2024 and didn't offer much help.

What thread are you referring to?

I have the sensor working using and esp32 and esphome, and I can read it from both my HA server and node red. I am trying to make this somewhat stand alone and not rely on my network or HA server. So connecting directly to the pi is the simplest solution.

Aside from that I can try using a small enet switch to connect the pi and esp32 but I'm not sure if that will work.

https://discourse.nodered.org/search?q=gpio%20order%3Alatest

2nd entry down.

You could maybe try connecting the ESP to the Pi over USB/Serial?