Welcome to VMware vRealize® Automation™ documentation. Learn how you can provide a secure portal where authorized administrators, developers, or business users can request new IT services. Manage your cloud and IT resources while ensuring compliance with business policies.
Get started by designing deployable infrastructure and applications, and provide the common service catalog where requests are processed. Then, plan and deliver a CI/CD build and pipeline.
For documentation on the software-as-a-service cloud version of this product, see VMware vRealize® Automation Cloud™.
vRealize Automation Versions 7 and 8
Be aware that the user experience changed significantly between versions 7 and 8. For vRealize Automation 7 documentation, the latest supported releases are browsable on the left. Older versions are available as ZIP downloads under the Archived Documentation heading.
Ready to get started with vRealize Automation 8?
Feel free to access the guides on the left, use the search option at the top, or go directly to topics in the table below. If you’re already running vRealize Automation 8, the in-product user assistance is also helpful.
Before you begin | Installation and transition | Getting started | Learn more about top features | Videos and other resources | Hand-on labs and product page |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
System recommendations and requirements, including ports | Installation | Cloud Assembly | Designing Cloud Assembly templates | vRealize Automation blogs and videos | Cloud Management Hands-on labs |
Supported cloud accounts and permissions | Transition from 7.4, 7.5, or 7.6 to 8.x | Service Broker | Adding content to the Service Broker catalog | Cloud Assembly tutorials | vRealize Automation product page |
VMware product interoperability matrix | vRealize Easy Installer video tutorials | Code Stream | Creating Code Stream pipelines | Code Stream tutorials | |
vRealize Suite | Setting up users | Orchestrator | Managing application life cycles with extensibility | vRealize Automation community forum | |
Using SaltStack Config | CLI and API links are located in the next section |
When you are in vRealize Automation, you can use the embedded user assistance.
- Use the signpost help to learn about a setting.
- Use the contextual help panel to get more information about a feature or configuration process.
- Use the contextual links or search option to locate information about a feature or process in this documentation set while you are working in vRealize Automation.

As you use the vRealize Automation documentation, we want you to know that we value inclusion at VMware. To foster this principle within our customer, partner, and internal community, we removed non-inclusive language from our documentation.
How do you learn more about the vRealize Automation CLI and APIs?
- vRealize Automation includes the
vracli
tool to perform administration and troubleshooting tasks from the command line. To usevracli
, connect to the vRealize Automation appliance using SSH and log in as the root user. For information onvracli
commands, typevracli -h
. - To help you use the vRealize Automation APIs, VMware provides two types of documentation. Both are intended for administrators and programmers who want to configure and manage vRealize Automation programmatically using the REST API.
vRealize Automation API Reference Includes OpenAPI files for all REST API service calls. How you access the API reference depends on the vRealize Automation version installed.
- If vRealize Automation 7.6 or earlier is installed, go to https://$vRA/component-registry/services/docs, where $vRA denotes an instance of vRealize Automation.
- If vRealize Automation 8.0 or later is installed, go to https://$vRA/automation-ui/api-docs, where $vRA is the hostname of your vRealize Automation appliance.
Programming Guide Provides common use cases including sample requests and responses.