zw008/VMware-AVI

> **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.
English | 中文
AVI (NSX Advanced Load Balancer) management and AKO Kubernetes operations tool — 28 tools across 10 categories.
> **Dual mode**: Traditional AVI Controller management + AKO K8s operations in one skill.
>
> **Companion skills** handle everything else:
>
> | Skill | Scope | Install |
> |-------|-------|---------|
> | **vmware-aiops** | VM lifecycle, deployment, guest ops, cluster | uv tool install vmware-aiops |
> | **vmware-monitor** | Read-only: inventory, health, alarms, events | uv tool install vmware-monitor |
> | **vmware-storage** | Datastores, iSCSI, vSAN management | uv tool install vmware-storage |
> | **vmware-vks** | Tanzu Namespaces, TKC cluster lifecycle | uv tool install vmware-vks |
> | **vmware-nsx** | NSX networking: segments, gateways, NAT | uv tool install vmware-nsx-mgmt |
> | **vmware-nsx-security** | DFW firewall rules, security groups | uv tool install vmware-nsx-security |
> | **vmware-aria** | Aria Ops: metrics, alerts, capacity | uv tool install vmware-aria |
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Upgrading to 2.0
2.0 renames all 28 MCP tools so every name starts with a verb (e.g. ako_amko_status → get_ako_amko_status, ako_clusters → list_ako_clusters, ako_config_diff → diff_ako_config). 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.
Quick Install
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:
For a **truly air-gapped host**, build the wheels on a connected machine and copy
them over — the target then needs no network:
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Capabilities Overview
What This Skill Does
| Category | Tools | Count |
|----------|-------|:-----:|
| **Virtual Service** | list, status, enable/disable | 3 |
| **Pool Member** | pool discovery, member list, enable/disable member (drain/restore traffic) | 4 |
| **SSL Certificate** | list, expiry check | 2 |
| **Analytics** | VS metrics overview, request error logs | 2 |
| **Service Engine** | list, health check | 2 |
| **AKO Pod Ops** | status, logs, restart, version info | 4 |
| **AKO Config** | values.yaml view, Helm diff, Helm upgrade | 3 |
| **Ingress Diagnostics** | annotation validation, VS mapping, error diagnosis, fix recommendation | 4 |
| **Sync Diagnostics** | K8s-Controller comparison, inconsistency list, force resync | 3 |
| **Multi-cluster** | cluster list, cross-cluster AKO overview, AMKO status | 3 |
CLI vs MCP: Which Mode to Use
| 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 |
| **AKO troubleshooting** | **CLI** | Interactive log tailing, Helm diff output |
> **Rule of thumb**: Use CLI for cost efficiency and small models. Use MCP for structured automation with large models.