VMware Harden

vmware-harden

> Disclaimer: Community-maintained open-source project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by VMware, Inc. or Broadcom Inc. "VMware", "vSphere", "ESXi", and "NSX" are trademarks of Broadcom. Source code is publicly auditable at github.com/zw008/VMware-Harden under the MIT license.

AI-native VMware compliance and baseline enforcement. Sibling to the vmware-* skill family.

GA family member (since v1.5.18)

Production-ready compliance platform with 6 built-in baselines (CIS ESXi, vSphere SCG v8, 等保 2.0 三级, PCI-DSS 4.0, EU NIS2, BSI IT-Grundschutz), 87 rules, multi-vCenter Twin, drift detection, LLM Remediation Advisor, MCP server with 6 audited tools, web dashboard, and vmware-harden doctor environment diagnostics.

Quickstart

uv tool install vmware-harden

# List built-in baselines
vmware-harden baseline list

# Run a scan
vmware-harden scan --target  --baseline cis-vmware-esxi-8.0-subset

# Or use 等保 2.0 三级 (国内合规独家)
vmware-harden scan --target  --baseline dengbao-2.0-level3-vmware

# View results
vmware-harden report
vmware-harden drift

# Generate remediation suggestions
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...  # optional; falls back to mock without
vmware-harden advise --all-critical

# Web dashboard
vmware-harden web --port 8080  # → http://127.0.0.1:8080

Built-in baselines

| Baseline | Rules | Applies to | Source | |----------|-------|-----------|--------| | cis-vmware-esxi-8.0-subset | 20 | host | CIS Benchmark v1.0 | | vsphere-scg-v8-subset | 15 | host, vm | VMware vcf-security-and-compliance-guidelines | | dengbao-2.0-level3-vmware | 20 | host, vm, datastore, dfwrule | GB/T 22239-2019 三级 | | pci-dss-4.0-vmware | 10 | host, dfwrule | PCI-DSS v4.0 | | eu-nis2-vmware | 12 | host, dfwrule | EU NIS2 Directive (Articles 21/23, Annex I) | | bsi-itgs-basisabsicherung-vmware | 10 | host | BSI IT-Grundschutz (OPS.1.1.4 + SYS.1.1) |

VCF 9.0 / 9.1 Compatibility

The existing baselines (cis-vmware-esxi-8.0-subset, vsphere-scg-v8, dengbao-2.0-level3-vmware, pci-dss-4.0-vmware) scan VCF 9.0 / 9.1 clusters successfully — most rules target host advanced settings stable across 8.x → 9.x. cis-vmware-esxi-9.0 and vsphere-scg-v9 baselines are planned for a future release.

Official Broadcom References

• Security Configuration Guides: — vSphere SCG v8 / future v9
• SDKs: — VCF Python SDK (for fetching host config via REST)
• CIS Benchmarks: — CIS VMware ESXi Benchmark v1.0 (8.0 / future 9.0)

Custom baselines

vmware-harden baseline validate ./my-strict.yaml
vmware-harden baseline import ./my-strict.yaml --name my-strict-cis
vmware-harden scan --target  --baseline my-strict-cis

YAML supports extends: for inheriting from a built-in baseline. See skills/vmware-harden/references/cli-reference.md.

MCP server

vmware-harden-mcp  # stdio MCP server

Configure your MCP client with one of examples/mcp-configs/*.json. 6 read-only tools: list_baselines, list_violations, get_remediation, list_drift_events, get_baseline_rules, scan_target.

Architecture

• Estate Digital Twin — DuckDB single file at ~/.vmware-harden/twin.duckdb. Multi-target safe via target prefix on all node IDs.
• Collectors — lazy-import sibling vmware-* skills (no spawn overhead). All scans are READ; writes deferred to vmware-pilot.
• Baseline schema — Pydantic v2, strict (extra="forbid"), extends: inheritance, user-dir override.
• Drift — pure diff function with optional persistence; auto-runs after every scan.
• Advisor — LLM-driven Suggestion generation; Anthropic provider with prompt caching; mock fallback for tests / no-API-key environments.
• Audit — every MCP tool wrapped with @vmware_tool from family vmware-policy.
• Web — FastAPI + Jinja2 + Tailwind/HTMX/ECharts CDN.

Lab regression

export VMWARE_HARDEN_LAB_TARGET=
pytest tests/eval/regression -v -m lab

Family

• vmware-aiops — host inventory + ops (used by harden's HostCollector)
• vmware-monitor — read-only counterpart
• vmware-storage — datastore inventory
• vmware-nsx-security — DFW inventory
• vmware-pilot — execute remediations (writes; out of scope for harden)
• vmware-policy — @vmware_tool audit decorator

Acceptance criteria (v1.5.18 GA)

• 221 tests passing
• Bandit: 0 issues at any severity
• All 6 MCP tools audited
• SKILL.md ≤ 3000 words, family-convention compliant
• SECURITY.md with 6 elements + Broadcom disclaimer
• 6 built-in baselines (87 rules)
• vmware-harden doctor for environment diagnostics
• GA member of vmware-* family (version-aligned at 1.5.28)

References

• Design: parent monorepo docs/plans/2026-05-03-vmware-harden-design.md
• M1/M2/M3 plans: docs/plans/2026-05-04-vmware-harden-{m1,m2,m3}-plan.md
• Family CLAUDE.md: /Users/zw/testany/myskills/CLAUDE.md

License

MIT

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: zw008
• Source: zw008/VMware-Harden
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.