Use this skill for safe, risk-free queries of VMware infrastructure — code-level enforced safety means no destructive operations exist in the codebase. Directly handles: a one-glance cross-cluster health summary, object-centered VM/host/datastore investigation drill-downs (correlating surrounding infrastructure + recent events), a cross-vCenter "what needs attention now?" rollup, list VMs/hosts/datastores/clusters, active alarms, recent events, VM details. Always use vmware-monitor when the user asks to "list VMs", "check vSphere alarms", "show host status", "is anything on fire", "what needs attention now", "what is happening around this VM/host/datastore", "investigate this VM" — or needs read-only VMware info before making changes. Do NOT use for any write operations — this skill is code-level read-only and cannot modify, create, or delete any resource. For VM modifications use vmware-aiops, for networking use vmware-nsx, for metrics/capacity use vmware-aria. For load balancing/AVI/AKO use vmware-avi.
Use this skill for safe, risk-free queries of VMware infrastructure — code-level enforced safety means no destructive operations exist in the codebase. Directly handles: a one-glance cross-cluster health summary, object-centered VM/host/datastore investigation drill-downs (correlating surrounding infrastructure + recent events), a cross-vCenter "what needs attention now?" rollup, list VMs/hosts/datastores/clusters, active alarms, recent events, VM details. Always use vmware-monitor when the user asks to "list VMs", "check vSphere alarms", "show host status", "is anything on fire", "what needs attention now", "what is happening around this VM/host/datastore", "investigate this VM" — or needs read-only VMware info before making changes. Do NOT use for any write operations — this skill is code-level read-only and cannot modify, create, or delete any resource. For VM modifications use vmware-aiops, for networking use vmware-nsx, for metrics/capacity use vmware-aria. For load balancing/AVI/AKO use vmware-avi.
vmware-policy auto-installed as Python dependency (provides @vmware_tool decorator and audit logging). All operations audited to ~/.vmware/audit.db. Credentials: Each vCenter/ESXi target requires a per-target password env var in ~/.vmware-monitor/.env following the pattern VMWARE_<TARGET_NAME_UPPER>_PASSWORD (e.g., target "vcenter-prod" → VMWARE_VCENTER_PROD_PASSWORD). SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL and DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL are optional — disabled by default, user-configured only, used solely by the opt-in daemon scanner. Daemon: the background scanner (vmware-monitor daemon start) is user-initiated only, never auto-started. Webhook payloads contain only aggregated alert metadata (alarm counts, event types) — no credentials, IPs, or PII.
VMware Monitor (Read-Only)
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/vmware-skills/VMware-Monitor under the MIT license.
One-glance cluster_health_summary — cross-cluster Problems/Capacity/Health rollup with an opinionated status; customizable view
Object Investigation
"What is happening around this VM / host / datastore?" — one correlated drill-down bundle per object, plus cross_vcenter_attention — one ranked "what needs attention now?" list across every configured vCenter
Inventory
List VMs, ESXi hosts, datastores, clusters, networks
Health
Active alarms, recent events (filter by severity/time), hardware sensors, host services
Performance
Real-time host & VM CPU/memory/disk/network utilisation (PerfManager)
uv tool install vmware-monitor
vmware-monitor doctor
When to Use This Skill
List or search VMs, hosts, datastores, clusters
Check active alarms or recent events
Get detailed info about a specific VM
Set up scheduled monitoring with webhook alerts
Any read-only VMware query where safety is paramount
Alarm/Event Output: suggested_actions Field
get_alarms and get_events results include a suggested_actions list. Each
item is a ready-to-use hint naming the correct companion skill and tool call
(e.g. "vmware-aiops: acknowledge_vcenter_alarm(entity_name=..., alarm_name=...)"),
so agents — especially smaller local models — can follow them directly without
reasoning about skill routing. Example payload: references/capabilities.md.
Use companion skills for:
Power on/off, deploy, clone, migrate --> vmware-aiops
Diagnostic investigations: Before running any "why is X failing / down / abnormal" workflow, 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. Since vmware-monitor is read-only, it serves as the data source — actuation belongs to companion skills like vmware-aiops.
Cluster Health Check ("is anything on fire?" / "what's wrong right now?")
Judgment: this is the 5-second triage glance, not an Aria replacement. One call rolls every cluster's hosts, VM power, live CPU/memory and alarms up, flattens the individual anomalies into a ranked top-N focus list (top_issues), and gives each cluster an opinionated status. On a big fleet, lead with the focus list — scanning per-cluster rows is too slow.
One glance --> vmware-monitor summary (MCP: cluster_health_summary). Read top_issues first (worst first, each with a drill-down next step); the per-cluster table is context. issues_total shows how many anomalies existed before the top-N cap
Tighten or widen the focus --> --top 5 for the 5 most urgent, --top 20 for more, --top 0 to hide the list and just see the table
Drill into what the list points at --> e.g. a host_down row → inventory hosts; an alarm row → get_alarms; a capacity row → perf hosts / capacity datastores; scope with --cluster prod-a
Reshape the view on request --> the output ends with a friendly hint; the operator can say "add datastore free space", "drop the DRS column", "only show clusters needing attention", or "save this as an HTML page". Default layout, columns, and thresholds live in references/health-summary-template.md and are meant to be edited
Save an offline snapshot --> vmware-monitor summary --html writes a self-contained HTML file (no external assets, nothing uploaded) to ~/vmware-health/cluster-health-<vc>-<timestamp>.html; --html-path <file> for an explicit path. The timestamped filename means a folder of them becomes a browsable point-in-time history. It is a snapshot, not a live page — re-run to refresh
On a very large fleet --> add --no-vms to skip the VM rollup pass when you only need host/alarm/capacity signals
If it returns zero clusters --> the target may be a standalone ESXi host (no clusters); use inventory hosts + health alarms instead
Daily Health Check
Judgment: alarms tell you what vCenter has decided is wrong, events tell you what happened. They diverge — an event burst with no alarms often signals a metric threshold miscalibration, not "everything is fine." Read both.
Check alarms --> vmware-monitor health alarms --target prod-vcenter — focus on Red severity AND alarms older than 1 hour (transient ones self-clear)
Review recent events --> vmware-monitor health events --hours 24 --severity warning — look for repeated events from the same entity (a single event is noise; 50 events in an hour is a pattern)
List hosts --> vmware-monitor inventory hosts — flag hosts disconnected, in maintenance mode unexpectedly, or memory > 90%
If connection fails --> run vmware-monitor doctor to diagnose config/network issues
Object-Centered Investigation ("what is happening around this VM / host / datastore?")
Judgment: this is the drill-down the operator wants after triage points at a problem — one call correlates the object with its surrounding infrastructure and recent history, so you explain the aggregated result in operational language instead of stitching five tools yourself. The tool aggregates; you never dump raw inventory into the conversation.
Offer the levels progressively — do not ask for details the environment already fixes:
Start at the top --> cross_vcenter_attention (CLI: vmware-monitor attention) for "what needs attention now?" across every vCenter. If only one vCenter is configured, skip straight to its cluster_health_summary — no need to ask which target
Offer to drill into an object the top-issues list points at. Ask which level only when it is genuinely ambiguous:
a VM --> vm_investigation_bundle (CLI: vmware-monitor investigate vm <name>) → VM state, recent events, snapshots, alarms & recent changes, the host it runs on, the cluster context, the datastores backing it, performance signals, and a correlated event timeline
a host --> host_investigation_bundle (CLI: investigate host <name>) → host state, cluster context, the VMs it runs, mounted datastores, alarms, performance, correlated timeline
a datastore --> datastore_investigation_bundle (CLI: investigate datastore <name>) → capacity/free, mounting hosts, VMs it backs, alarms, correlated timeline
Widen or narrow on request --> --hours 72 for a longer event window; the bundle ends with a hint listing what is adjustable
Make it tangible --> add --html to any investigate/attention command for a self-contained offline snapshot (drill-down sections collapse/expand natively, no JS, nothing uploaded) written to ~/vmware-health/
If the object name is unknown --> the tool returns a teaching error naming exactly how to list the objects (list_virtual_machines / list_esxi_hosts / list_all_datastores); get the exact name and retry
If a vCenter is unreachable (attention only) --> it is listed under unreachable with a reason and the rest still aggregate — surface the gap, don't fail the whole view
Performance Triage ("the cluster feels slow")
Judgment: inventory shows configured capacity (cores, GB); it cannot tell you what is actually hot. Use the real-time perf tools, then narrow.
Rank hosts --> vmware-monitor perf hosts — the busiest host floats to the top (sorted by CPU%)
Rank VMs on the suspect --> vmware-monitor perf vms --limit 25 — find the noisy neighbour
Check for hidden storage pressure --> vmware-monitor capacity datastores — over-commit % > 100 means a thin datastore can fill mid-run even with "free" space showing
Rule out snapshot drag --> vmware-monitor snapshots aging --only-old — old snapshots silently degrade I/O
If perf tools return empty --> the host/VM may be disconnected or powered off (no real-time provider); confirm with inventory hosts / inventory vms
Cert expiry --> vmware-monitor infra certs --warn-days 60 — an expired ESXi cert drops host management
License headroom --> vmware-monitor infra licenses — catch over-allocation before it disables features
Time sync --> vmware-monitor infra ntp — healthy: no breaks SSO/Kerberos/log correlation (note: live offset is not exposed by the SOAP API, only config health)
Set Up Continuous Monitoring
Configure webhook in ~/.vmware-monitor/config.yaml
Start daemon --> vmware-monitor daemon start
Daemon scans every 15 min, sends alerts to Slack/Discord
Usage Mode
Scenario
Recommended
Why
Local/small models (Ollama, Qwen)
CLI
~2K tokens vs ~8K for MCP
Cloud models (Claude, GPT-4o)
Either
MCP gives structured JSON I/O
Automated pipelines
MCP
Type-safe parameters, structured output
MCP Tools (31 — all read-only)
Tool
Description
list_virtual_machines
List VMs with filtering (power state, sort, limit, folder_filter); each VM includes folder_path
list_esxi_hosts
ESXi hosts with CPU, memory, version, uptime
list_all_datastores
Datastores with capacity, free space, type
list_all_clusters
Clusters with host count, DRS/HA status
cluster_health_summary
One-glance triage across all clusters — ranked top_issues focus list + per-cluster rollup with opinionated status. Params: cluster_filter, include_vms, top_n. Render per references/health-summary-template.md
vm_investigation_bundle
"What is happening around this VM?" — correlated drill-down with a merged, newest-first event timeline (contents listed in the workflow above). Params: vm_name, hours. Aggregated in the tool; explain, don't dump raw
host_investigation_bundle
Same correlated drill-down around an ESXi host. Params: host_name, hours
datastore_investigation_bundle
Same correlated drill-down around a datastore. Params: datastore_name, hours
cross_vcenter_attention
"What needs attention now?" across every configured vCenter — one globally-ranked top_issues list (each tagged with its vcenter) + per-target rollup; unreachable targets degrade gracefully. Params: cluster_filter, top_n
list_all_networks
Networks with attached VM count and accessibility
get_alarms
All active/triggered alarms — includes suggested_actions remediation hints
get_events
Recent events filtered by severity and time — includes suggested_actions hints
get_host_sensors
Hardware sensor status (temperature/voltage/fan) per host with green/yellow/red health
get_host_services
Host service status (running state and startup policy), optionally filtered by host
vm_info
Detailed VM info (CPU, memory, disks, NICs, snapshots)
vm_list_snapshots
Snapshot list for one VM with nesting hierarchy (read-only)
host_performance
Real-time host CPU/mem/disk/net utilisation (PerfManager); busiest first
vm_performance
Real-time VM CPU/mem/disk/net utilisation (top 25 by default); powered-on only
snapshot_aging
Inventory-wide snapshot sweep with age + sprawl; flags snapshots older than N days
certificate_status
Per-host ESXi management certificate expiry (days until expiry, expiring flag)
license_status
vCenter/ESXi license inventory with used/total and expiration
ntp_status
Per-host NTP config health (servers + ntpd state); live offset not in SOAP API
datastore_capacity
Datastore over-commit (provisioned vs capacity); thin-provisioning risk
resource_pool_usage
Resource-pool CPU/memory reservation, limit, and current usage
active_tasks
In-flight (and recently completed) vCenter tasks with progress/errors
active_sessions
Currently authenticated vCenter/ESXi sessions (who is logged in)
host_log_scan
Scan recent ESXi host syslog (hostd/vmkernel/vpxa) for error/warning patterns; returns only matching lines, optionally filtered to one host
host_memory_tiering
vSphere 9.1 — per-host memory tiering (DRAM/NVMe tiers) + NVMe uplift ratio (pyVmomi hardware.memoryTierInfo, needs ESXi 8.0U3+). Params: host_name, limit. Returns the list envelope
cluster_patch_compliance
vSphere 9.1 — vLCM software (patch) compliance for one cluster over vSphere Automation REST. Param: cluster (MoID, e.g. domain-c123). available:false = vCenter answered 503 (likely mid-patch), not an error; non_compliant_hosts is null when the host-status field is unknown, never a false 0
cluster_last_apply_result
vSphere 9.1 — result of the last vLCM remediation (apply) on one cluster (REST). Param: cluster (MoID). Reports outcome only; never runs a remediation
vcenter_deployment_size
vSphere 9.1 — vCenter appliance deployment size class (REST, NEW in 9.1). available:false on 503
vSphere 9.1 field-parse honesty: the 3 REST tools' endpoints are spec-verified, but their JSON field names have NOT yet been replayed against a live 9.1 vCenter — every field is read defensively and each result self-labels via its note (endpoint verified; field parse best-effort pending live 9.1 vCenter). host_memory_tiering requires vCenter/ESXi 8.0U3+; older targets raise a teaching error naming the missing property.
All tools are read-only. No tool can modify, create, or delete any resource.
Performance/capacity readings are point-in-time samples — this skill retains no
history, so it never reports a fabricated "trend" or runway date.
List result shape
The 21 row-listing tools above (including host_memory_tiering) return the family list envelope
{items, returned, limit, total, truncated, hint}, not a bare array. Read
truncated before summarising: true means more rows exist — never call
items the whole picture; false states the result is complete — including
when items is empty, which means "checked, found none", not "the call
failed". A nulltotal (get_events, host_log_scan) is deliberate.
Aggregate tools return purpose-built objects instead — field table and
example payload: references/capabilities.md.
Read-Only by Design
All 31 tools here are reads — there is no write, create, or delete surface at
all. Running with local or small models? See
references/agent-guardrails.md.
Full CLI reference (all flags + activity/tasks/sessions): see references/cli-reference.md
Troubleshooting
Alarms returns empty but vCenter shows alarms
The get_alarms tool queries triggered alarms at the root folder level. Some alarms are entity-specific — try checking events instead: get_events --hours 1 --severity info.
"Connection refused" error
Run vmware-monitor doctor to diagnose
Verify target hostname/IP and port (443) in config.yaml
For self-signed certs: set disableSslCertValidation: true
Events returns too many results
Use severity filter: --severity warning (default) filters out info-level events. Use --hours 4 to narrow time range.
VM info shows "guest_os: unknown"
VMware Tools not installed or not running in the guest. Install/start VMware Tools for guest OS detection, IP address, and guest family info.
Doctor passes but commands fail with timeout
vCenter may be under heavy load. Try targeting a specific ESXi host directly instead of vCenter, or increase connection timeout in config.yaml.
Should I set environment: on a read-only skill?
You can — add environment: production (or staging, lab, your own label)
to each target in ~/.vmware-monitor/config.yaml. It's an optional label; this
skill has zero write tools, so nothing it exposes is ever gated by it — reads
are never gated. It matters for the write skills (vmware-aiops,
vmware-storage, vmware-nsx) pointed at the same vCenter: an
environment-scoped deny rule in ~/.vmware/rules.yaml can match on the label
to block their writes (e.g. freeze production). A target with no label is
simply not matched by such a rule. Config example: references/setup-guide.md.
Setup
uv tool install vmware-monitor
vmware-monitor init # guided: prompts for host/user/password, writes config + .env (chmod 600), then verifies
init stores the password grep-safe (obfuscated b64:, never plaintext) and
locks .env to 0600. Prefer it over hand-editing; manual steps:
references/setup-guide.md.
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)
