Google Compute Engine

Full VM lifecycle management plus read-only inspection of disks, snapshots, templates, MIGs, and GPU availability

Overview

The Google Compute Engine MCP server provides full VM lifecycle management plus rich read-only inspection of GCP compute infrastructure. You can create, start, stop, reset, resize, and delete VMs, as well as inspect disks, snapshots, instance templates, managed instance groups, and GPU availability.

25 tools — 6 write, 19 read-only.

VM lifecycle is fully supported. However, disks, snapshots, instance templates, MIGs, reservations, and commitments are read-only inspection targets — create and manage those via the GCP Console, gcloud CLI, or Terraform.

How to Add Google Compute Engine

1. Enable the Compute Engine API

   1. Go to the Google Cloud Console
   2. Select your project (or create one) — you will need the project ID
   3. Navigate to APIs & Services → Library
   4. Search for Compute Engine API and click Enable
2. Add to Civic

   Add the Google Compute Engine server to your Civic environment through the server directory.

3. Authorize

   On first use, you will be redirected to Google to authorize the connection.

4. Test Connection

   Start with "List all VMs in us-central1-a" to verify the connection. You will need to know your GCP project ID — the server cannot discover it.

What You Can Do

VM Lifecycle

Create, start, stop, reset, resize, and delete VM instances

Disk Inspection

List disks, view sizes, performance configs, and snapshot history

GPU Discovery

List available GPU and TPU accelerator types per zone

Template & MIG Inspection

View instance templates and managed instance group status

Use Cases

VM Management

• Create: "Create an e2-micro VM called test-vm in us-central1-a using Debian 12"
• List: "List all VMs in us-central1-a"
• Resize: "Stop VM my-vm, resize it to n2-standard-8, then start it again"
• Delete: "Delete all stopped VMs in us-central1-a"
• GPU: "Create an n1-standard-4 VM with 1 T4 GPU — what maintenance policy should I use?"

Infrastructure Inspection

• Disks: "Show me all disks in us-central1-a and their sizes"
• Snapshots: "List all snapshots in my project and how much storage they're using"
• GPUs: "What GPUs are available in us-central1-a?"
• Templates: "What does instance template my-template define — show me the full VM config"
• MIGs: "Show me all instances in MIG my-mig and their current status"

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Available Tools (25)

VM Lifecycle (6 write tools)

create_instance

create_instance — Create a new VM instance. Async — use get_zone_operation to track completion.

delete_instance

delete_instance — Delete a VM. Disks with autoDelete: true (the default) are deleted with the VM.

start_instance / stop_instance / reset_instance

Start, stop, or hard-reset a VM. All async. reset_instance is a hard reset, not a graceful reboot.

set_instance_machine_type

set_instance_machine_type — Resize a VM to a different machine type. The VM must be stopped first.

VM Inspection

list_instances

list_instances — List all VMs in a specific zone. Zone is strictly required — no cross-zone queries.

get_instance_basic_info

get_instance_basic_info — Get details for a single VM including GPU accelerators.

list_instance_attached_disks

list_instance_attached_disks — List all disks attached to a VM with full attachment metadata.

Disks & Snapshots

list_disks / get_disk_basic_info / get_disk_performance_config

Inspect persistent disks — sizes, types, performance settings (IOPS/throughput), and timestamps. Zone-scoped.

list_snapshots

list_snapshots — List all disk snapshots in a project. Project-scoped (not zone-scoped).

Machine Types & GPUs

list_machine_types

list_machine_types — List all available machine types in a zone. Returns a very large response (~239KB).

list_accelerator_types

list_accelerator_types — List available GPU and TPU types in a zone. Availability varies significantly by zone.

list_images

list_images — List available VM images in an image project (Debian, CentOS, etc.).

Templates & MIGs

list_instance_templates / get_instance_template_basic_info / get_instance_template_properties

Inspect instance templates — saved VM configuration blueprints. Global templates only — regional templates are not visible.

list_instance_group_managers / get_instance_group_manager_basic_info / list_managed_instances

Inspect managed instance groups and their instances. Zonal MIGs only — regional MIGs are not visible.

Operations & Capacity

get_zone_operation

get_zone_operation — Track status of async operations. Always check the error field, not just status.

list_reservations / list_commitments

List capacity reservations and committed use discounts.

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Project ID required — The server cannot discover project IDs. Find yours in the GCP Console project picker.

Zone-scoped listings — list_instances, list_disks, and MIG tools all require a specific zone. No cross-zone queries.

e2 instances — Always specify maintenancePolicy: MIGRATE for e2 instances. The default (TERMINATE) causes creation to fail. GPU instances are the opposite — they require TERMINATE.

Always check operation errors — Write operations are async. set_instance_machine_type on a running VM returns DONE with an embedded error — always inspect the error field.

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Guardrails

This server supports all 14 universal guardrails. Server-specific guardrails are coming soon.

Configure guardrails via the Civic UI or ask the Configurator Agent: “Add guardrails to my Google Compute Engine server.”