VMware AIops

Disclaimer: This is a community-maintained open-source project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by VMware, Inc. or Broadcom Inc. "VMware" and "vSphere" are trademarks of Broadcom. Source code is publicly auditable at github.com/zw008/VMware-AIops under the MIT license.

VMware family entry point — AI-powered VM lifecycle, deployment, and alarm management — 44 MCP tools.

Start here: install vmware-aiops first, then add modules as needed. Run vmware-aiops hub status to see which family members are installed. Family: vmware-monitor (inventory/health), vmware-storage (iSCSI/vSAN), vmware-vks (Tanzu Kubernetes), vmware-nsx (NSX networking), vmware-nsx-security (DFW/firewall), vmware-aria (metrics/alerts/capacity), vmware-avi (AVI/ALB/AKO), vmware-harden (compliance baselines). | vmware-pilot (workflow orchestration) | vmware-policy (audit/policy)

What This Skill Does

Quick Install

uv tool install vmware-aiops
vmware-aiops doctor
vmware-aiops hub status   # see which family members are installed

VMware Family — Install What You Need

vmware-aiops is the entry point. Add modules for additional capabilities:

Each module stays independent — small tool count keeps local models (Ollama, Qwen) accurate.

When to Use This Skill

• Power on/off, create, delete, snapshot, clone, or migrate VMs
• Deploy VMs from OVA, templates, linked clones, or batch specs
• Run commands or transfer files inside a VM (Guest Operations)
• Create/configure clusters (HA/DRS)
• Browse datastores for deployable images
• Plan and execute multi-step operations with rollback
• List, acknowledge, and clear vCenter triggered alarms (clear matches by entity type + status — see MCP Tools section)

Use companion skills for:

• Inventory, health, alarms, VM info → vmware-monitor
• iSCSI, vSAN, datastore management → vmware-storage
• Tanzu Kubernetes (Supervisor, Namespace, TKC) → vmware-vks
• Load balancing, AVI/ALB, AKO, Ingress → vmware-avi

Related Skills — Skill Routing

Common Workflows

Diagnostic investigations: Before remediating any "why is X slow / failing / down" issue, follow references/investigation-protocol.md. It enforces the four root-cause completeness criteria (falsifiability / sufficiency / necessity / mechanism) and the up-to-three-rounds deepening loop. Only invoke L3+ write tools after the four criteria are satisfied AND the user has approved a remediation plan.

Deploy a Lab Environment

Pre-flight (judgment, not blind sequence):

• Free space: target datastore must have ≥ OVA size × 2 (delta files + thin-provision overhead). If multiple datastores qualify, prefer one with lowest current IOPS pressure (cross-check vmware-aria if available).
• Name hygiene: prefix with date or owner (lab-2026-04-30-alice) so the TTL cleanup audit trail is meaningful.
• TTL: always set. 480 min for a single test session, 7200 min for a week-long sandbox. Never deploy a "lab" VM without a TTL — that is how datastores fill up at 3 AM.
• Snapshot timing: take the baseline after provisioning succeeds, not before — a pre-provision snapshot is just an empty checkpoint.

Steps:

1. vmware-aiops datastore browse <ds> --pattern "*.ova" → confirm image present and size
2. vmware-aiops deploy ova <path> --name <date>-<owner>-<purpose> --datastore <ds>
3. vmware-aiops vm guest-exec <name> --cmd /usr/bin/python3 --args "setup.py" --user admin → if exit ≠ 0, stop, do not snapshot a half-provisioned VM
4. vmware-aiops vm snapshot-create <name> --name baseline (only if multi-iteration testing; skip for one-shot)
5. vmware-aiops vm set-ttl <name> --minutes 480

Batch Clone for Testing

Pre-flight:

• Source VM state: powered-off is safest. If powered-on, VMware Tools must be running and quiesce-capable, else clones may have inconsistent disk state.
• Capacity math: free_space ≥ source.size × count × 1.2 (full clone) or ≥ count × 2 GB (linked clone, delta-only).
• Decision rule: count > 10 → use linked clones (deploy linked-clone); seconds vs minutes per clone, ~100× less storage. Tradeoff: linked clones depend on source snapshot — deleting the snapshot breaks all children.
• Network exhaustion: each clone gets a unique MAC from the vSphere pool; if you batch > 200, verify pool capacity in advance.
• TTL: every clone must have one. Use the plan's metadata to track ownership.

Steps:

1. vm_create_plan with clone + reconfigure + set-ttl steps grouped per VM (atomic per clone)
2. Review the plan with the user — surface count, datastore, irreversible warnings
3. vm_apply_plan — stops on first failure (intentional, do not auto-resume)
4. On failure: vm_rollback_plan → reverses completed clones; manually verify rollback before retrying

Migrate VM to Another Host

Pre-flight (ALL must pass before issuing migrate):

• CPU compatibility: target host CPU family must match source, OR cluster must be in EVC mode. Live migration across mismatched CPUs fails mid-flight and may leave the VM stunned.
• Network parity: every portgroup the VM uses must exist on the target host's vSwitch with the same VLAN. Missing portgroup → vNICs disconnected post-migration.
• Storage visibility: target host must see all of the VM's datastores; otherwise this is a Storage vMotion, not a host migration — different (slower) operation.
• Affinity rules: if the VM is pinned to source by a DRS host-affinity rule, migration silently violates intent. Check cluster info first.
• Hardware passthrough: VMs with PCI passthrough (GPU, USB) cannot live-migrate — schedule a cold migration window.

Steps:

1. Verify VM state and current host via vmware-monitor vm info <name>
2. Verify target host: same cluster, EVC compatible, has required networks/datastores
3. vmware-aiops vm migrate <name> --to-host <target> — wait for task completion, do not assume success on return
4. Post-check: vm info confirms new host AND power state unchanged AND vNICs connected

Usage Mode

MCP Tools (44 — 9 read, 35 write)

Read/write split: 9 tools are read-only (per [READ] docstring marker), 35 modify state. All write tools require explicit parameters and are audit-logged. Destructive operations (vm_delete, vm_revert_snapshot, vm_delete_snapshot, vm_set_ttl (schedules an unattended auto-delete), force power-off, cluster delete/remove-host, alarm reset) require double confirmation at the CLI layer and support --dry-run.

Alarm reset blast radius: vSphere has no per-alarm clear API. reset_vcenter_alarm uses AlarmManager.ClearTriggeredAlarms, which clears all triggered alarms matching the named alarm's entity type (host/VM/all) and current status (red/yellow) — not just the one named. The response's scope field states exactly what was cleared. The named alarm is looked up first, so a typo fails fast without clearing anything.

CLI Quick Reference

# VM operations
vmware-aiops vm power-on <name> [--target <t>]
vmware-aiops vm power-off <name> [--force]
vmware-aiops vm create <name> --cpu 4 --memory 8192 --disk 100
vmware-aiops vm delete <name>
vmware-aiops vm clone <name> --new-name <new> [--to-host <host>] [--to-datastore <ds>] [--power-on]
vmware-aiops vm migrate <name> --to-host <host> [--to-datastore <ds>]
vmware-aiops vm snapshot-create <name> --name <snap> [--description <text>] [--memory]
vmware-aiops vm snapshot-list <name>
vmware-aiops vm snapshot-revert <name> --name <snap>
vmware-aiops vm snapshot-delete <name> --name <snap> [--remove-children] [--no-wait]
                                                            # waits up to 30 min for delta consolidation;
                                                            # --no-wait returns a task id immediately
vmware-aiops vm task-status <task-id>                      # poll an async (--no-wait) operation by id
vmware-aiops vm set-ttl <name> --minutes 480 [--dry-run]   # double confirm; daemon auto-deletes VM on expiry

# Guest operations (requires VMware Tools)
vmware-aiops vm guest-exec <name> --cmd <script-path> --args "<args>" --user <username>
vmware-aiops vm guest-upload <name> --local ./script.sh --guest /tmp/script.sh --user <username>

# Deploy
vmware-aiops deploy ova <path> --name <vm> --datastore <ds>
vmware-aiops deploy linked-clone --source <vm> --snapshot <snap> --name <new>

# Cluster
vmware-aiops cluster create <name> --ha --drs
vmware-aiops cluster info <name>

# Datastore
vmware-aiops datastore browse <ds> --pattern "*.ova"

# Alarm management
vmware-aiops alarm list [--target <t>]
vmware-aiops alarm acknowledge <entity_name> <alarm_name> [--target <t>]
vmware-aiops alarm reset <entity_name> <alarm_name> [--target <t>]   # double confirm; clears ALL alarms matching entity type + status

# Family
vmware-aiops hub status        # show installed family members + install commands

Full CLI reference: see references/cli-reference.md

Troubleshooting

"VM not found" error

VM names are case-sensitive in vSphere. Use exact name from vmware-monitor inventory vms.

Guest exec returns empty output

Use vm_guest_exec_output instead of vm_guest_exec — it auto-captures stdout/stderr. Basic vm_guest_exec only returns exit code.

Deploy OVA times out

Large OVA files (>10GB) may exceed the default 120s timeout. The upload happens via HTTP NFC lease — ensure network between the machine running vmware-aiops and ESXi is stable.

Snapshot delete is slow / "still running after Ns"

Deleting an old or large snapshot consolidates its delta disk into the parent — the slowest write operation, often several minutes. vm snapshot-delete waits up to 30 min by default; if it still returns a "still running, NOT failed" message with a task id, the delete did not fail — poll it with vm task-status <task-id>. Do not re-issue the delete or hand-roll polling. For very large snapshots, prefer vm snapshot-delete <name> --name <snap> --no-wait to get the task id immediately and poll.

Plan apply fails mid-way

Run vmware-aiops plan list to see failed plan status. Ask user if they want to rollback with vm_rollback_plan. Irreversible steps (delete_vm) are skipped during rollback.

Connection refused / SSL error

1. Verify target is reachable: vmware-aiops doctor
2. For self-signed certs: set disableSslCertValidation: true in config.yaml (lab environments only)

Setup

uv tool install vmware-aiops
mkdir -p ~/.vmware-aiops
vmware-aiops init  # generates config.yaml and .env templates
chmod 600 ~/.vmware-aiops/.env

All tools are automatically audited via vmware-policy. Audit logs: vmware-audit log --last 20

Full setup guide, security details, and AI platform compatibility: see references/setup-guide.md

Audit & Safety

All operations are automatically audited via vmware-policy (@vmware_tool decorator):

• Every tool call logged to ~/.vmware/audit.db (SQLite, framework-agnostic)
• Policy rules enforced via ~/.vmware/rules.yaml (deny rules, maintenance windows, risk levels)
• Risk classification: each tool tagged as low/medium/high/critical
• View recent operations: vmware-audit log --last 20
• View denied operations: vmware-audit log --status denied

vmware-policy is automatically installed as a dependency — no manual setup needed.

License

MIT — github.com/zw008/VMware-AIops