Skip to content

vscode-copilot.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
127 lines (102 loc) · 3.6 KB

vscode-copilot.md

File metadata and controls

127 lines (102 loc) · 3.6 KB

Using vmware-monitor with VS Code Copilot

VS Code's GitHub Copilot supports MCP servers via .vscode/mcp.json. This guide shows how to add vmware-monitor for safe, read-only VMware monitoring from within VS Code.

Code-level safety: vmware-monitor contains zero destructive code — no power off, delete, create, or reconfigure functions in the codebase.

Prerequisites

  1. Install vmware-monitor

    uv tool install vmware-monitor

  2. Configure credentials

    mkdir -p ~/.vmware-monitor
cat > ~/.vmware-monitor/config.yaml << 'EOF'
targets:
  my-vcenter:
    host: vcenter.example.com
    username: readonly-user@vsphere.local
    password_env: VMWARE_MONITOR_PASSWORD
    verify_ssl: false
EOF

echo "VMWARE_MONITOR_PASSWORD=your_password" > ~/.vmware-monitor/.env
chmod 600 ~/.vmware-monitor/.env

  3. Verify setup

    vmware-monitor doctor

Adding to VS Code Copilot

Option A: Workspace config (.vscode/mcp.json)

Create or edit .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace:

{
  "servers": {
    "vmware-monitor": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "vmware-monitor",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "env": {
        "VMWARE_MONITOR_CONFIG": "${env:HOME}/.vmware-monitor/config.yaml"
      }
    }
  }
}

Option B: User-level config (settings.json)

Add to VS Code settings.json (Cmd+Shift+P → "Open User Settings JSON"):

{
  "github.copilot.chat.mcp.enabled": true,
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "vmware-monitor": {
        "type": "stdio",
        "command": "vmware-monitor",
        "args": ["mcp"],
        "env": {
          "VMWARE_MONITOR_CONFIG": "/Users/your-name/.vmware-monitor/config.yaml"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

A ready-to-use template is available at examples/mcp-configs/vscode-copilot.json.

Available MCP Tools (7 read-only tools)

Tool Description
list_virtual_machines List VMs with power state, CPU, RAM, IP. Supports limit, sort_by, power_state, fields
list_esxi_hosts List hosts with CPU cores, memory, ESXi version, uptime
list_all_datastores List datastores with capacity, free space, type
list_all_clusters List clusters with host count, DRS/HA status
get_alarms Get active alarms with severity and description
get_events Get recent vCenter/ESXi events
vm_info Get detailed VM info including snapshot list

All tools accept an optional target parameter to switch between environments.

Usage Examples

Example 1: Check environment before deployment

You: @vmware-monitor Is the staging environment healthy?

Copilot: [calls get_alarms + vm_info for vm-staging]
vm-staging: ✓ ON | 8 vCPU | 16GB (11GB used)
No active alarms | Datastore: 450GB free
Ready for deployment ✓

Example 2: Inventory during incident response

You: @vmware-monitor Which VMs are on esxi-03 and what's their status?

Copilot: [calls list_virtual_machines with fields filtering]
esxi-03 (14 VMs — CPU 88%, RAM 94%):
- vm-db-primary: ON, 32GB RAM, 2 active alarms
- vm-db-replica: ON, 32GB RAM, healthy
- vm-web01..vm-web08: ON, 8GB RAM each, healthy
- vm-batch01: ON, 64GB RAM — likely causing high load

Example 3: Snapshot audit

You: @vmware-monitor Find VMs with snapshots older than 7 days

Copilot: [calls list_virtual_machines → vm_info for each]
3 VMs with stale snapshots:
- vm-db-01: snapshot "pre-patch" — 21 days old (4.2GB)
- vm-web03: snapshot "before-upgrade" — 14 days old (1.8GB)
- vm-test-02: snapshot "initial" — 45 days old (8.1GB) ← consider removing