VMware Policy

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.

Unified audit logging, policy enforcement, and sanitization for the VMware MCP skill family.

Install

pip install vmware-policy

Usage

from vmware_policy import vmware_tool

@vmware_tool(risk_level="high", sensitive_params=["password"])
def delete_segment(name: str, env: str = "") -> dict:
    ...

Reporting a failure the tool returns

Most tools signal failure by raising, and @vmware_tool records that. A tool that instead catches the exception and returns an error payload looks identical to a successful call — and for a long time was recorded as one, which also meant undo tokens were written for changes that never happened and the circuit breaker never saw a failure.

Dict-shaped payloads are now detected automatically. Nothing to do if a tool returns the family shape:

return {"error": msg, "hint": "Run 'vmware-nsx doctor'."}   # audited as a failure

A tool whose return type cannot carry that marker — one handing back console text, say — must say so explicitly:

from vmware_policy import report_tool_failure

except Exception as exc:
    report_tool_failure(str(exc))
    return f"Error: {msg}"

Strings are deliberately not sniffed: skills that return console output can emit text beginning with "Error:" as data, and marking those calls failed would be the same misreport in the opposite direction.

CLI

vmware-audit log --last 20
vmware-audit log --status denied --since 2026-03-28
vmware-audit stats --days 7
vmware-audit policy          # which rules are in force

Components

Component	Description
`@vmware_tool`	Decorator around a skill's MCP tools -- policy pre-check + execute + audit row
`AuditEngine`	Append-only SQLite (WAL) audit log; rotates at 100 MB, keeps 5 archives
`PolicyEngine`	YAML rules: deny rules and maintenance window, hot-reloaded on file change. `change_limits` is reserved and not enforced.
`sanitize()`	Prompt-injection defense -- strips C0/C1 control and Unicode format characters, truncates (default 500 chars)
`vmware-audit`	Typer CLI -- query, export, statistics, rule status

AI Agent -> vmware-pilot (optional orchestration) -> @vmware_tool pre-check -> skill operation -> audit row -> ~/.vmware/audit.db

Policy rules

Read/write authorization belongs to the vCenter/NSX account's RBAC. The policy engine only adds the operator's own deny rules and maintenance window, from ~/.vmware/rules.yaml ($OPS_HOME/rules.yaml if set). vmware-audit policy reports which source is in force:

Source	When	What is permitted
`user`	Your rules file exists and loads	Whatever your rules allow
`packaged-default`	No rules file	The shipped baseline, which denies nothing -- all operations are allowed by policy
`user-unreadable`	Your file exists but will not load (YAML error, not UTF-8)	Nothing -- every operation is denied until it loads; the baseline is never substituted
`baseline-unreadable`	No user file and the shipped baseline will not load	Nothing -- every operation is denied

PyYAML is a declared dependency; if it is missing, decorated tool calls fail rather than run. Rules hot-reload on file change.

VMWARE_POLICY_DISABLED=1 is an operator escape hatch: in the process that has it set (the MCP host, or a CLI shell) every policy check is skipped, including the unreadable-rules denial. Auditing continues -- each bypassed check logs a warning, and rows from both surfaces -- @vmware_tool MCP calls and @guarded CLI commands -- are recorded with a _bypassed status suffix (ok_bypassed, error_bypassed). Restrict who can set the MCP host's environment.

Risk levels

The level a tool declares is recorded in the audit row, can be matched by a deny rule's min_risk_level, and decides whether a configured maintenance window applies. It does not by itself gate execution.

Level	Examples
`low`	list, get, info, status
`medium`	reconfigure, update
`high`	power off, migrate, snapshot revert
`critical`	delete VM, delete cluster

Security

The audit database (~/.vmware/audit.db, local only, 0700 directory / 0600 files) records tool parameters, results, status, OS user and inferred agent -- treat it and its archives as sensitive.
Parameters named in sensitive_params are stored as ***; results from tools declaring sensitive_result=True are replaced; credential-named keys (password, token, kubeconfig, ...) in parameters and results, and credential-shaped text in error messages, are redacted on both the MCP and CLI surfaces. A credential under a key name not on that list must be declared in sensitive_params.
sanitize() guards against prompt injection through API response text.
Policy bypass (VMWARE_POLICY_DISABLED=1) skips policy checks, not auditing.

Metadata

Release files for vmware-policy 1.15.0

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Source distribution for vmware-policy 1.15.0
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Table of built distributions (wheels) for vmware-policy 1.15.0
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
vmware_policy-1.15.0-py3-none-any.whl 69.5 kB Sep 15, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

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