VMware Aria Operations

VMware Aria Operations MCP Skill

For a read-only check of this skill with your model and agent host, use the shared model-fit self-test in the marketplace root.

Note: In VCF 9.0 and later, VMware Aria Operations has been rebranded as VCF Operations. This skill works against both names — the /suite-api/ REST endpoints are unchanged.

Author: Wei Zhou, VMware by Broadcom — wei-wz.zhou@broadcom.com

This is a community-driven project by a VMware engineer, not an official VMware product.

For official VMware developer tools see developer.broadcom.com.

AI-assisted monitoring and capacity planning for VMware Aria Operations (vRealize Operations) via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Upgrading to 2.0

2.0 renames 4 of its MCP tools so every name starts with a verb (e.g. findings_list → list_findings, fleet_certificate_list → list_fleet_certificates, fleet_domain_list → list_fleet_domains). The full old → new table is in RELEASE_NOTES.md. Nothing else changes: same tools, parameters, safety gates and CLI commands. If an agent prompt, script or ~/.vmware/rules.yaml names a tool, update it — though deny rules written with the old names keep working with vmware-policy ≥ 1.18 (vmware-audit policy lists any rule the renames widened), and vmware-pilot ≥ 1.13 translates old names in saved workflows. If an install older than 2.0 shares that rules.yaml, give it vmware-policy ≥ 1.18.2 too: it matches each rule against both the old and the new name, so one file serves both.

Overview

vmware-aria exposes 46 MCP tools for interacting with Aria Operations through natural language AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Goose, etc.):

Total: 46 tools — 36 read-only, 10 write

Quick Start

# Install

uv tool install vmware-aria

Configure

mkdir -p ~/.vmware-aria cat > ~/.vmware-aria/config.yaml << 'EOF' targets: prod: host: aria-ops.example.com username: admin port: 443 verify_ssl: true auth_source: LOCAL default_target: prod EOF

Set password (never in config.yaml)

echo "VMWARE_ARIA_PROD_PASSWORD=your_password" > ~/.vmware-aria/.env chmod 600 ~/.vmware-aria/.env

Verify setup

vmware-aria doctor

Offline / Air-Gapped Install (from source)

This project uses the modern PEP 517 build system (hatchling), so there is no `setup.py` by design — that is expected, not a missing file. If you cloned the source and hit ERROR: File "setup.py" or "setup.cfg" not found ... editable mode currently requires a setuptools-based build, your pip is older than 21.3 and cannot do an *editable* (-e) install with a non-setuptools backend. Editable mode is a developer convenience, not needed to run the tool — do one of:

# From the source tree — a normal (non-editable) install builds a wheel:

pip install . # NOT pip install -e .

...or upgrade pip first, and editable works too:

pip install --upgrade pip && pip install -e .

For a truly air-gapped host, build the wheels on a connected machine and copy them over — the target then needs no network:

# On a connected machine, collect this package + its dependencies as wheels:

pip wheel . -w dist # → dist/*.whl (or: uv build, for just this package)

Copy dist/ to the air-gapped host, then install offline:

pip install --no-index --find-links dist vmware-aria

CLI Examples

# List top CPU consumers

vmware-aria resource top --metric 'cpu|usage_average' --top 10

Check active CRITICAL alerts

vmware-aria alert list --criticality CRITICAL

Acknowledge an alert

vmware-aria alert acknowledge

Fetch 4-hour CPU + memory metrics for a VM ("missing" says why a key has no points)

vmware-aria resource metrics --metrics 'cpu|usage_average,mem|usage_average' --hours 4

Check cluster capacity

vmware-aria capacity remaining vmware-aria capacity time-remaining

Find rightsizing opportunities (vCPU / memory now → recommended, direction, actionable)

vmware-aria capacity rightsizing

Check Aria platform health: HEALTHY / DEGRADED / DOWN / UNKNOWN, per service, plus version

vmware-aria health status vmware-aria health collectors

Is the Aria node short of memory? Which adapter stopped collecting?

vmware-aria health node vmware-aria health adapters

Look up the metric keys a VM reports before querying them

vmware-aria resource keys --filter 'mem|'

Put a host in maintenance for 2 hours before planned work, then end it (asks once; --dry-run prints the API call)

vmware-aria maintenance start --duration 120 vmware-aria maintenance end

Record who is handling an alert, and read what Aria recommends

vmware-aria alert note-add "Taking this: rebooting esx-03" vmware-aria alert recommendations

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

After uv tool install vmware-aria, add to ~/.claude.json:

{

"mcpServers": { "vmware-aria": { "command": "vmware-aria", "args": ["mcp"], "env": { "VMWARE_ARIA_CONFIG": "~/.vmware-aria/config.yaml" } } } }

v1.5.15+ uses the single-command form vmware-aria mcp. The legacy

vmware-aria-mcp console script is still kept for backward compatibility.

If you must use uvx --from vmware-aria vmware-aria mcp (no install) and hit

invalid peer certificate: UnknownIssuer behind a corporate TLS proxy, set

UV_NATIVE_TLS=true or use the recommended vmware-aria mcp form above.

Then use natural language:

• *"Show me the top 10 CPU consumers right now"*
• *"List all CRITICAL alerts and acknowledge them"*
• *"How long until the prod cluster runs out of memory?"*
• *"Which VMs are over-provisioned? Show rightsizing recommendations"*
• *"Are there any anomalies on vm-web-01?"*

Authentication

Aria Operations uses vRealizeOpsToken authentication:

POST /suite-api/api/auth/token/acquire

{"username": "admin", "password": "...", "authSource": "LOCAL"} → {"token": "abc123", "validity": 1765182896000} # validity = expiry epoch ms

Subsequent requests: Authorization: vRealizeOpsToken abc123

Tokens have a 6-hour sliding validity (extended on each call, per the official spec); the client re-acquires automatically 60 seconds before expiry. The validity field is the expiry timestamp in epoch milliseconds, not a duration.

Architecture

User (natural language)

↓ AI Agent (Claude Code / Goose / Cursor) ↓ [reads SKILL.md] vmware-aria MCP server (stdio transport) ↓ [HTTPS + vRealizeOpsToken] Aria Operations Suite API ↓ VMs / Hosts / Clusters / Alerts / Capacity

Companion Skills

Security

• Passwords loaded from env vars or .env file, never from config.yaml
• Every MCP tool call and every CLI command that reaches Aria audit-logged to ~/.vmware/audit.db (via vmware-policy); CLI write operations (alert acknowledge/cancel, alert notes, alert definition management, report generate/delete, resource maintenance start/end) also append to ~/.vmware-aria/audit.log
• API responses sanitized (control chars stripped, 500-char limit) to prevent prompt injection
• MCP destructive writes (alert acknowledge/cancel, alert definition and report delete, maintenance start/end) take confirm (default false): without confirm=true they return a blast_radius of what would change and change nothing; confirm=true is refused on a blocker (e.g. a resource already in maintenance) or an unreadable field. The old confirmed alias was removed in 2.4.2; a call that passes it is refused as an unknown argument
• TLS verification is on by default; for a private CA set SSL_CERT_FILE to a bundle with your CA (see setup guide). verify_ssl: false is for isolated self-signed labs only

Official Broadcom References

• REST APIs: https://developer.broadcom.com/xapis — VCF Operations API (formerly Aria Operations suite-api)
• SDKs: https://developer.broadcom.com/sdks — VCF Python SDK
• CLI Tools: https://developer.broadcom.com/tools — PowerCLI 9.1 includes "VCF Operations (formerly vRealize Operations Manager)" cmdlets

Remote access (HTTPS) and limiting tools

By default vmware-aria mcp speaks stdio to one local client and offers every tool. Two options change that (vmware-policy ≥ 1.21.0).

Serve over HTTPS so clients on other machines can connect. Every caller needs a bearer token:

vmware-audit token create alice          # prints the token once; give it to alice

vmware-audit token list # names only vmware-audit token revoke alice # refused from its next request, no restart vmware-aria mcp --transport https --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8443 \ --cert /etc/vmware-mcp/server.pem --key /etc/vmware-mcp/server-key.pem \ --public-name mcp.example.com

Connect a client (Claude Code shown; any MCP client that supports streamable HTTP and custom headers works):

claude mcp add --transport http vmware-aria https://mcp.example.com:8443/mcp \

--header "Authori