VCFA Operations

Operate and troubleshoot VCF Automation through the MCP server. Start with read-only discovery and only mutate after explicit confirmation. This skill orchestrates the server's prompts, resources, and tools rather than replacing them.

Core principles

• Inspect before you act. Use the list-* and get-* tools and the execution log tools to understand state before remediating.
• The mutating tools — run-workflow, run-workflow-and-wait, create-deployment, run-deployment-action, delete-deployment, create-template, delete-template, create-subscription, update-subscription, delete-subscription — require a confirm: true argument plus real user confirmation of the exact target and expected impact.
• create-deployment provisions real infrastructure and is annotated destructive for that reason — the one additive create- tool that is. Both of its required arguments are opaque UUIDs that nothing else in the call identifies, so pass expectedCatalogItemName and expectedProjectName and let the handler verify the target against live metadata before it submits.
• Running a workflow or a deployment day-2 action changes the live environment. Treat it like a production operation: confirm target, inputs, and blast radius.

Prefer the server prompts

• vcfa-troubleshoot-deployment — inspect a deployment and its day-2 options before remediation.
• vcfa-troubleshoot-workflow-execution — diagnose a failed execution using logs, stack, and workflow source.
• vcfa-discover-capabilities — explore plugins, categories, workflows, actions, catalog items, deployments, templates, and subscriptions.
• vcfa-collect-context-snapshot — persist reusable environment context.
• vcfa-create-template and vcfa-review-template — discover conventions before drafting a blueprint, and review one for catalog readiness.
• vcfa-integrate-workflow-template-subscription — plan workflow, template, catalog, deployment, and subscription integration.

Tool map by task

• Execution: run-workflow, run-workflow-and-wait, get-workflow-execution, get-workflow-execution-logs, list-workflow-executions.
• Deployments: list-deployments, get-deployment, list-deployment-requests, get-deployment-request, list-deployment-actions, run-deployment-action, create-deployment (provisions infrastructure; annotated destructive), delete-deployment.
• Projects: list-projects, get-project (resolve projectId before project-scoped calls).
• Catalog: list-catalog-items, get-catalog-item.
• Templates: list-templates, get-template, create-template, delete-template.
• Subscriptions and events: list-event-topics, list-subscriptions, get-subscription, create-subscription, update-subscription, delete-subscription.
• Discovery support: list-workflows, list-actions, list-categories, list-plugins.

Live objects are also available as read-only resources, e.g. vcfa://deployments/{id}, vcfa://workflows/{id}, and vcfa://subscriptions/{id}.

vra8 mode caveat

When the server runs with VCFA_TARGET_PLATFORM=vra8 (vRA/vRO 8.12+, vIDM bearer-token auth), the whole vRO surface works, reads and writes alike, and the Automation-service surfaces — catalog, deployments, templates, projects, subscriptions, and event topics — can be read. Template and subscription writes work there too: creating or deleting a template, and creating, updating, or deleting a subscription. Deployment writes work there too — creating a deployment, deleting one, and running a day-2 action — verified on vRA 8.18 under VCFO-088, behind the same confirm gate and expected* guards as on VCF Automation. export-configuration-file is unsupported on every platform, not only there: no vRO tested serves a single configuration element as a .vsoconf, so the request answers 406. Route a configuration element through the project package instead. In vra8 mode prepare-artifact-promotion reports a configuration backup as skipped while still returning its report; elsewhere that backup attempts the export and surfaces the refusal.