VMware Aria Operations MCP Skill

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

Overview

vmware-aria exposes 18 MCP tools for interacting with Aria Operations through natural language AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Goose, etc.):

Category	Tools	Type
Resources	list, get, metrics, health badge, top consumers	Read-only (5)
Alerts	list, get, acknowledge, cancel, definitions	Read + 2 Write (5)
Capacity	overview, remaining, time-remaining, rightsizing	Read-only (4)
Anomaly	list anomalies, risk badge	Read-only (2)
Health	platform health, collector groups	Read-only (2)

Total: 18 tools — 16 read-only, 2 write (acknowledge/cancel alerts)

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

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 <alert-id>

# Fetch 4-hour CPU + memory metrics for a VM
vmware-aria resource metrics <vm-id> --metrics cpu|usage_average,mem|usage_average --hours 4

# Check cluster capacity
vmware-aria capacity remaining <cluster-id>
vmware-aria capacity time-remaining <cluster-id>

# Find rightsizing opportunities
vmware-aria capacity rightsizing

# Check Aria platform health
vmware-aria health status
vmware-aria health collectors

MCP Setup (Claude Code)

Add to ~/.claude.json:

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

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 OpsToken authentication:

POST /suite-api/api/auth/token/acquire
{"username": "admin", "password": "...", "authSource": "LOCAL"}
→ {"token": "abc123", "validity": 1800000}

Subsequent requests: Authorization: OpsToken abc123

Tokens are valid for 30 minutes and automatically refreshed 60 seconds before expiry.

Architecture

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

Companion Skills

Skill	Scope	Tools	Install
vmware-aiops ⭐ entry point	VM lifecycle, deployment, guest ops, clusters	31	uv tool install vmware-aiops
vmware-monitor	Read-only monitoring, alarms, events, VM info	8	uv tool install vmware-monitor
vmware-nsx	NSX networking: segments, gateways, NAT, IPAM	31	uv tool install vmware-nsx-mgmt
vmware-nsx-security	DFW microsegmentation, security groups, Traceflow	20	uv tool install vmware-nsx-security
vmware-storage	Datastores, iSCSI, vSAN	11	uv tool install vmware-storage
vmware-vks	Tanzu Namespaces, TKC cluster lifecycle	20	uv tool install vmware-vks

Security

• Passwords loaded from env vars or .env file, never from config.yaml
• Write operations (acknowledge/cancel alert) audit-logged to ~/.vmware-aria/audit.log
• API responses sanitized (control chars stripped, 500-char limit) to prevent prompt injection
• Supports self-signed certificates (verify_ssl: false) for lab environments

License

MIT — see LICENSE