VMware AIops

AI-powered VMware vCenter and ESXi operations tool. Manage your entire VMware infrastructure using natural language through any AI coding assistant.

Also available: vmware-monitor — A read-only version of this skill for safe monitoring without risk of accidental modifications. Use /vmware-ops:vmware-monitor in Claude Code.

When to Use This Skill

• Query VM, host, datastore, cluster, and network inventory
• Check health status, active alarms, hardware sensors, and event logs
• Perform VM lifecycle operations: power on/off, create, delete, snapshot, clone, migrate
• Monitor vSAN health, capacity, disk groups, and performance
• Access Aria Operations (VCF Operations) for historical metrics, anomaly detection, and capacity planning
• Manage vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) clusters
• Run scheduled scanning with webhook notifications (Slack, Discord)

Quick Install

Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, Trae, Kimi, and 30+ AI agents:

npx skills add zw008/VMware-AIops

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add zw008/VMware-AIops
/plugin install vmware-ops
/vmware-ops:vmware-aiops

Architecture

User (Natural Language)
  ↓
AI CLI Tool (Claude Code / Gemini / Codex / Aider / Continue / Trae / Kimi)
  ↓ Reads SKILL.md / AGENTS.md / rules
  ↓
vmware-aiops CLI
  ↓ pyVmomi (vSphere SOAP API)
  ↓
vCenter Server ──→ ESXi Clusters ──→ VMs
    or
ESXi Standalone ──→ VMs

Capabilities

1. Inventory

Feature	vCenter	ESXi	Details
List VMs	✅	✅	Name, power state, CPU, memory, guest OS, IP
List Hosts	✅	⚠️ Self only	CPU cores, memory, ESXi version, VM count, uptime
List Datastores	✅	✅	Capacity, free/used, type (VMFS/NFS), usage %
List Clusters	✅	❌	Host count, DRS/HA status
List Networks	✅	✅	Network name, associated VM count

2. Health & Monitoring

Feature	vCenter	ESXi	Details
Active Alarms	✅	✅	Severity, alarm name, entity, timestamp
Event/Log Query	✅	✅	Filter by time range, severity; 50+ event types
Hardware Sensors	✅	✅	Temperature, voltage, fan status
Host Services	✅	✅	hostd, vpxa running/stopped status

Monitored Event Types:

Category	Events
VM Failures	VmFailedToPowerOnEvent, VmDiskFailedEvent, VmFailoverFailed
Host Issues	HostConnectionLostEvent, HostShutdownEvent, HostIpChangedEvent
Storage	DatastoreCapacityIncreasedEvent, SCSI high latency
HA/DRS	DasHostFailedEvent, DrsVmMigratedEvent, DrsSoftRuleViolationEvent
Auth	UserLoginSessionEvent, BadUsernameSessionEvent

3. VM Lifecycle

Operation	Command	Confirmation	vCenter	ESXi
Power On	vm power-on <name>	—	✅	✅
Graceful Shutdown	vm power-off <name>	Double	✅	✅
Force Power Off	vm power-off <name> --force	Double	✅	✅
Reset	vm reset <name>	—	✅	✅
Suspend	vm suspend <name>	—	✅	✅
VM Info	vm info <name>	—	✅	✅
Create VM	vm create <name> --cpu --memory --disk	—	✅	✅
Delete VM	vm delete <name>	Double	✅	✅
Reconfigure	vm reconfigure <name> --cpu --memory	Double	✅	✅
Create Snapshot	vm snapshot-create <name> --name <snap>	—	✅	✅
List Snapshots	vm snapshot-list <name>	—	✅	✅
Revert Snapshot	vm snapshot-revert <name> --name <snap>	—	✅	✅
Delete Snapshot	vm snapshot-delete <name> --name <snap>	—	✅	✅
Clone VM	vm clone <name> --new-name <new>	—	✅	✅
vMotion	vm migrate <name> --to-host <host>	—	✅	❌

4. vSAN Management

Feature	Details
Health Check	Cluster-wide health summary, per-group test results
Capacity	Total/free/used capacity with projections
Disk Groups	Cache SSD + capacity disks per host
Performance	IOPS, latency, throughput per cluster/host/VM

Requires pyVmomi 8.0.3+ (vSAN SDK merged). For older versions, install the standalone vSAN Management SDK.

5. Aria Operations (VCF Operations)

Feature	Details
Historical Metrics	Time-series CPU, memory, disk, network with months of history
Anomaly Detection	ML-based dynamic baselines and anomaly alerts
Capacity Planning	What-if analysis, time-to-exhaustion, forecasting
Right-sizing	CPU/memory recommendations per VM
Intelligent Alerts	Root cause analysis, remediation recommendations

REST API at /suite-api/. Auth: vRealizeOpsToken. Rebranded as VCF Operations in VCF 9.0.

6. vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS)

Feature	Details
List Clusters	Tanzu Kubernetes clusters with phase status
Cluster Health	InfrastructureReady, ControlPlaneAvailable, WorkersAvailable
Scale Workers	Adjust MachineDeployment replicas
Node Status	Machine status, ready/unhealthy counts

Kubernetes-native API via kubectl/kubeconfig. VKS 3.6+ uses Cluster API specification.

7. Scheduled Scanning & Notifications

Feature	Details
Daemon	APScheduler-based, configurable interval (default 15 min)
Multi-target Scan	Sequentially scan all configured vCenter/ESXi targets
Scan Content	Alarms + Events + Host logs (hostd, vmkernel, vpxd)
Log Analysis	Regex pattern matching: error, fail, critical, panic, timeout
Webhook	Slack, Discord, or any HTTP endpoint

Safety Features

Feature	Details
Plan → Confirm → Execute → Log	Structured workflow: show current state, confirm changes, execute, audit log
Double Confirmation	All destructive ops (power-off, delete, reconfigure, snapshot-revert/delete, clone, migrate) require 2 sequential confirmations — no bypass flags
Rejection Logging	Declined confirmations are recorded in the audit trail for security review
Audit Trail	All operations logged to ~/.vmware-aiops/audit.log (JSONL) with before/after state
Input Validation	VM name length/format, CPU (1-128), memory (128-1048576 MB), disk (1-65536 GB) validated before execution
Password Protection	.env file loading, never in command line or shell history; file permission check at startup
SSL Self-signed Support	disableSslCertValidation for ESXi 8.0 self-signed certs
Task Waiting	All async operations wait for completion and report result
State Validation	Pre-operation checks (VM exists, power state correct)

Version Compatibility

vSphere Version	Support	Notes
8.0 / 8.0U1-U3	✅ Full	CreateSnapshot_Task deprecated → use CreateSnapshotEx_Task
7.0 / 7.0U1-U3	✅ Full	All APIs supported
6.7	✅ Compatible	Backward-compatible, tested
6.5	✅ Compatible	Backward-compatible, tested

pyVmomi auto-negotiates the API version during SOAP handshake — no manual configuration needed.

Supported AI Platforms

Platform	Status	Config File
Claude Code	✅ Native Skill	plugins/.../SKILL.md
Gemini CLI	✅ Extension	gemini-extension/GEMINI.md
OpenAI Codex CLI	✅ Skill + AGENTS.md	codex-skill/AGENTS.md
Aider	✅ Conventions	codex-skill/AGENTS.md
Continue CLI	✅ Rules	codex-skill/AGENTS.md
Trae IDE	✅ Rules	trae-rules/project_rules.md
Kimi Code CLI	✅ Skill	kimi-skill/SKILL.md
MCP Server	✅ MCP Protocol	mcp_server/
Python CLI	✅ Standalone	N/A

CLI Reference

# Inventory
vmware-aiops inventory vms [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops inventory hosts [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops inventory datastores [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops inventory clusters [--target <name>]

# Health
vmware-aiops health alarms [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops health events [--hours 24] [--severity warning]

# VM Operations
vmware-aiops vm info <vm-name>
vmware-aiops vm power-on <vm-name>
vmware-aiops vm power-off <vm-name> [--force]
vmware-aiops vm create <name> [--cpu <n>] [--memory <mb>] [--disk <gb>]
vmware-aiops vm delete <vm-name> [--confirm]
vmware-aiops vm reconfigure <vm-name> [--cpu <n>] [--memory <mb>]
vmware-aiops vm snapshot-create <vm-name> --name <snap-name>
vmware-aiops vm snapshot-list <vm-name>
vmware-aiops vm snapshot-revert <vm-name> --name <snap-name>
vmware-aiops vm snapshot-delete <vm-name> --name <snap-name>
vmware-aiops vm clone <vm-name> --new-name <name>
vmware-aiops vm migrate <vm-name> --to-host <host>

# vSAN
vmware-aiops vsan health [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops vsan capacity [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops vsan disks [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops vsan performance [--hours 1]

# Aria Operations
vmware-aiops ops alerts [--severity critical]
vmware-aiops ops metrics <resource-name> [--hours 24]
vmware-aiops ops recommendations [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops ops capacity <cluster-name>

# VKS (Kubernetes)
vmware-aiops vks clusters [--namespace default]
vmware-aiops vks health <cluster-name>
vmware-aiops vks scale <machine-deployment> --replicas <n>
vmware-aiops vks nodes <cluster-name>

# Scanning & Daemon
vmware-aiops scan now [--target <name>]
vmware-aiops daemon start
vmware-aiops daemon stop
vmware-aiops daemon status

Setup

# 1. Clone & install
git clone https://github.com/zw008/VMware-AIops.git
cd VMware-AIops
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

# 2. Configure
mkdir -p ~/.vmware-aiops
cp config.example.yaml ~/.vmware-aiops/config.yaml
cp .env.example ~/.vmware-aiops/.env
chmod 600 ~/.vmware-aiops/.env
# Edit config.yaml and .env with your target details

License

MIT