| name | vmware-pilot |
| description | Use this skill whenever the user wants to design, execute, or manage complex multi-step VMware workflows with human approval and automatic rollback. Pilot is the orchestration brain — it breaks a goal into steps across companion VMware skills (aiops, monitor, nsx, nsx-security, aria, vks, storage, avi), adds approval gates before destructive operations, and rolls back automatically if anything fails. Always use vmware-pilot for: "clone and test before applying to production", "VMware incident response with checkpoints", "investigate alert root cause", "VMware rolling restart with health checks", "baseline capture and drift detection", "rolling maintenance with AVI drain", or any VMware workflow needing approval gates or rollback. 15 built-in templates + custom YAML + AI-designed workflows. Do NOT use for single-step work — use vmware-aiops for one VM action, vmware-monitor for read-only queries, vmware-avi for load balancer queries.
|
| installer | {"kind":"uv","package":"vmware-pilot"} |
| allowed-tools | ["Bash"] |
| metadata | {"openclaw":{"requires":{"bins":["vmware-pilot"]},"optional":{"env":["VMWARE_AUDIT_APPROVED_BY"]},"primaryEnv":"NONE","homepage":"https://github.com/zw008/VMware-Pilot","emoji":"🧭","os":["macos","linux"]}} |
| compatibility | vmware-policy auto-installed as Python dependency (provides @vmware_tool decorator and audit logging). All workflow operations audited to ~/.vmware/audit.db. No direct vCenter/NSX credentials: Pilot is an orchestration layer that delegates to companion skills (aiops, monitor, nsx, etc.) which handle their own auth. Approval gates: Workflows pause for human review before destructive steps. Rollback automatically reverses completed steps on failure. State persistence: SQLite-backed workflow state survives restarts. No webhooks, no outbound network calls. Transitive dependencies: Only vmware-policy (audit/policy). No post-install scripts or background services.
|
VMware Pilot
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" is a trademark of Broadcom. Source code is publicly auditable at github.com/zw008/VMware-Pilot under the MIT license.
Multi-step workflow orchestration for VMware MCP skills — design, approve, execute, rollback.
Companion Skills: vmware-aiops (VM operations) | vmware-monitor (monitoring) | vmware-nsx (networking) | vmware-aria (metrics/alerts) | vmware-avi (load balancing/AKO)
What This Skill Does
| Capability | Description |
|---|
| Workflow Design | Natural language goal → AI designs steps from the get_skill_catalog building-block list (69 curated tools across 8 skills) |
| Approval Gates | Pause execution for human review before destructive operations |
| State Persistence | SQLite-backed, survives restarts, supports resume from checkpoint |
| Rollback | Reverse completed steps in order if workflow fails |
| Custom Templates | Save workflows as YAML for reuse, hot-reload without restart |
| Compliance Scans | Read-only health/capacity/anomaly checks across skills |
Quick Install
uv tool install vmware-pilot
vmware-pilot mcp
When to Use This Skill
| Scenario | Use Pilot? | Why |
|---|
| "Clone VM, test, then apply to prod" | Yes | Multi-step + approval |
| "Power on a VM" | No, use aiops | Single operation |
| "Set up app network + firewall + VMs" | Yes | Cross-skill orchestration |
| "Check cluster health" | No, use monitor/aria | Single read-only query |
| "Diagnose and fix an alert" | Yes | incident_response template |
| "Run compliance check" | Yes | compliance_scan template |
| "Drain server, patch, restore traffic" | Yes | Cross-skill: avi drain + aiops patch |
| "Deploy app with AKO ingress" | Yes | Cross-skill: aiops + vks + avi |
| "Check pool member health" | No, use avi | Single read-only query |
Related Skills — Skill Routing
| User Intent | Recommended Skill |
|---|
| VM lifecycle (power, clone, deploy) | vmware-aiops (uv tool install vmware-aiops) |
| Read-only monitoring | vmware-monitor (uv tool install vmware-monitor) |
| NSX networking (segments, gateways, NAT) | vmware-nsx (uv tool install vmware-nsx-mgmt) |
| NSX security (DFW, groups) | vmware-nsx-security (uv tool install vmware-nsx-security) |
| Aria metrics/alerts/capacity | vmware-aria (uv tool install vmware-aria) |
| Tanzu Kubernetes (Supervisor/TKC) | vmware-vks (uv tool install vmware-vks) |
| Storage (iSCSI, vSAN, datastores) | vmware-storage (uv tool install vmware-storage) |
| Load balancing, VS, pool, AKO | vmware-avi (uv tool install vmware-avi) |
| Audit log query | vmware-policy (vmware-audit CLI) |
| Multi-step orchestration | vmware-pilot (this skill) |
Common Workflows
1. Design a Custom Workflow (Interactive)
User: "I need to set up a new app environment with networking and VMs"
AI calls: get_skill_catalog() → see available tools
AI calls: design_workflow(goal="...") → create draft
AI calls: update_draft(id, steps=[...]) → fill in steps
User reviews and confirms
AI calls: confirm_draft(id, save_as_template=True)
AI calls: run_workflow(id) → execute with approval gates
2. Clone-and-Test (Built-in Template)
AI calls: plan_workflow("clone_and_test", {
target_vm: "db01",
change_spec: {memory_mb: 32768},
target: "vcenter-prod"
})
AI calls: run_workflow(workflow_id)
→ Clone → Apply → Monitor → [Approval Gate] → Commit → Cleanup
3. Batch Operations with Approval
AI calls: plan_workflow("plan_and_approve", {
operations: [
{action: "power_off", vm_name: "db01"},
{action: "revert_snapshot", vm_name: "db01", snapshot_name: "baseline"},
{action: "power_on", vm_name: "db01"}
]
})
→ Create Plan → [Approval Gate] → Execute Plan (with auto-rollback on failure)
4. Rolling Maintenance with AVI Drain
Drain traffic from a pool member via AVI, patch the server, then restore traffic:
1. vmware-avi pool disable <pool> <server> # drain traffic from pool member
2. vmware-avi analytics <vs> # verify drain complete (0 active connections)
3. vmware-aiops vm guest-exec <vm> --cmd "apt-get upgrade -y" # patch the server
4. vmware-avi pool enable <pool> <server> # restore traffic to pool member
5. vmware-avi pool members <pool> # verify health status is green
5. AKO-Aware Application Deployment
Deploy a backend VM, create a K8s namespace, and wire up AKO Ingress to the AVI Controller:
1. vmware-aiops deploy ova <image> --name <vm> # deploy backend VM
2. vmware-vks namespace create <ns> # create K8s namespace
3. kubectl apply -f ingress.yaml # create Ingress with AKO annotations
4. vmware-avi ako ingress check <ns> # validate AKO annotations are correct
5. vmware-avi ako sync status # verify VS created on AVI Controller
Dispatch Contract (Important)
Pilot is a Dispatcher, not an Executor. It generates plans, tracks state, gates on approvals — it does NOT call companion skills' MCP tools itself. The calling AI agent is responsible for invoking vmware-aiops::vm_clone etc. when pilot's run_workflow returns a step description.
This is intentional v2-style architecture: pilot's context stays small, state is always on disk, and there are no persistent agent threads. Full contract details: see references/integration-patterns.md.
get_skill_catalog is a curated design aid, not a whitelist. It surfaces 69 hand-picked building blocks across 8 skills — a deliberate subset of what those skills expose (aiops alone has 49 tools; the catalog lists 18). A step's skill field is a free-form string handed to the calling agent, so a workflow may name any companion skill, including ones the catalog does not list — pilot itself (pilot) is used that way by built-in templates for approval gates. Use the catalog for inspiration; consult the target skill's own SKILL.md for its full tool surface.
MCP Tools (13 — 4 read, 9 write/control)
| Category | Tool | Risk | Description |
|---|
| Discovery | get_skill_catalog | low | Available skills and tools for design |
| list_workflows | low | Built-in + custom templates |
| Design | design_workflow | low | Natural language → draft |
| update_draft | medium | Edit draft steps |
| confirm_draft | medium | Finalize draft → ready to execute |
| Execute | plan_workflow | medium | Create from template |
| create_workflow | medium | One-step custom creation |
| review_workflow | low | Structural sanity check before execution (approved | needs_revision) |
| run_workflow | medium | Execute next checkpoint (agent dispatches each step) |
| Control | approve | high | Human approval to continue |
| cancel_workflow | high | Cancel a workflow (approval rejected / unsafe) → terminal CANCELLED, can't be run |
| rollback | high | Reverse completed steps |
| get_workflow_status | low | State + audit log |
Built-in Templates (15)
The five most-used:
| Template | Steps | Approval | Skills Used |
|---|
clone_and_test | 6 | Yes | aiops + monitor |
incident_response | 4 | Yes | monitor + aiops |
investigate_alert | 4 / 8 | Yes | monitor + aria (parallel-group gather + 4-criteria checkpoint, optional deep_dive) |
plan_and_approve | 3 | Yes | aiops |
compliance_scan | 3 | No | monitor + aria |
Full list: clone_and_test, incident_response, investigate_alert, plan_and_approve, compliance_scan, network_segment_setup, vks_cluster_deploy, rolling_restart, capacity_expansion, disaster_recovery, patch_deployment, storage_expansion, baseline_capture, baseline_audit, baseline_remediate. See references/templates.md for full details.
Custom Templates
Drop YAML files in ~/.vmware/workflows/ — pilot auto-loads them.
name: restart_cluster
description: Rolling restart of database cluster
steps:
- action: check_health
skill: monitor
tool: get_alarms
params:
target: "{{target}}"
- action: stop_replica
skill: aiops
tool: vm_power_off
params:
vm_name: "{{replica_vm}}"
rollback_tool: vm_power_on
rollback_params:
vm_name: "{{replica_vm}}"
- action: require_approval
skill: pilot
tool: approve
params:
message: "Replica stopped. Proceed?"
- action: restart_primary
skill: aiops
tool: vm_power_off
params:
vm_name: "{{primary_vm}}"
Usage Mode
| Scenario | Recommended | Why |
|---|
| Local/small models (Ollama, Qwen) | MCP | Structured JSON I/O for multi-step state |
| Cloud models (Claude, GPT-4o) | MCP | Design mode needs structured tool calls |
| CI/CD pipeline orchestration | MCP | Programmatic plan/approve/run cycle |
| Quick template listing | MCP | Call list_workflows; the CLI has no template commands |
Note: every workflow operation — design, plan, run, approve, rollback — is MCP-only.
The vmware-pilot CLI exists to launch the server and report its version, nothing more.
Other skills in the family (aiops, monitor, avi, etc.) offer full CLI and MCP modes.
CLI Quick Reference
The CLI is a launcher, not a second interface to workflows:
vmware-pilot mcp
vmware-pilot version
vmware-pilot --help
python3 scripts/validate_workflow.py ~/.vmware/workflows/my_workflow.yaml
python3 scripts/list_available_tools.py
python3 scripts/list_available_tools.py aiops
python3 scripts/list_available_tools.py --json
vmware-audit log --last 20
vmware-audit log --status denied
Full CLI reference for companion skills: see references/cli-reference.md
Troubleshooting
Workflow stuck in "awaiting_approval"
Call approve(workflow_id) with the correct workflow ID to continue, or rollback(workflow_id) to abort. If the MCP session was lost, reconnect and call get_workflow_status(workflow_id) to see the current state -- workflows persist in SQLite and survive restarts.
"Unknown workflow type" error from plan_workflow
The template name is case-sensitive. Use list_workflows() to see all available built-in and custom template names. Custom templates must be valid YAML in ~/.vmware/workflows/.
Custom YAML template not appearing
- Verify the file is in
~/.vmware/workflows/ with a .yaml extension
- Check YAML syntax -- run
python3 scripts/validate_workflow.py <path> to validate
- Template names must be unique -- a custom template cannot shadow a built-in name
Rollback fails on some steps
Not all steps are reversible. Steps without rollback_tool defined are skipped during rollback. Pilot uses best-effort rollback: if one rollback step fails, it continues with remaining steps and reports which succeeded and which failed.
"Workflow cannot be run" state error
A workflow can only be run from pending or running states. If it is in draft, call confirm_draft() first. If it is in completed or failed, create a new workflow -- completed workflows cannot be re-run.
vmware-policy dependency missing
Pilot requires vmware-policy for the @vmware_tool decorator and audit logging. It is declared as a dependency in pyproject.toml and should install automatically. If missing, run pip install vmware-policy or reinstall pilot.
Setup
No vCenter credentials needed — pilot orchestrates other skills that handle connections.
{
"mcpServers": {
"vmware-pilot": {
"command": "vmware-pilot",
"args": ["mcp"]
}
}
}
Fallback: {"command": "uvx", "args": ["--from", "vmware-pilot", "vmware-pilot-mcp"]} also
works, but uvx re-resolves the package against PyPI on every start and fails behind a
TLS-inspecting corporate proxy (invalid peer certificate: UnknownIssuer). The installed
entry point above touches the network zero times; set UV_NATIVE_TLS=true if you must use uvx.
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
- Environment scoping: policy rules can scope by environment (an optional label an opt-in
deny rule may match), and skills with a config may declare environment: per target. Pilot has no targets of its own and reports a constant local — its writes go to the local workflow DB, never to a VMware estate. Pilot's approval gate is a step in its own workflow: it pauses before the agent dispatches a destructive step, and the target skill then applies its own policy rules when the step runs
- 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
