MCP Tools Reference: compute.googleapis.com

Tool: list_instances

Lists Compute Engine virtual machine (VM) instances. Details for each instance include name, ID, status, machine type, creation timestamp, and attached guest accelerators. Use other tools to get more details about each instance. Requires project and zone as input.

The following sample demonstrate how to use curl to invoke the list_instances MCP tool.

Curl Request 
                  
curl --location 'https://compute.googleapis.com/mcp' \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--header 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
--data '{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "list_instances",
    "arguments": {
      // provide these details according to the tool's MCP specification
    }
  },
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1
}'

Input Schema

Request message for listing instances basic info.

JSON representation 
{
  "project": string,
  "zone": string,
  "pageSize": integer,
  "pageToken": string
}
Fields
project

string

Required. Project ID for this request.
zone

string

Required. The zone of the instances.
pageSize

integer

Optional. The maximum number of instances to return.
pageToken

string

Optional. A page token received from a previous call to list instances.

Output Schema

Response message for listing instances basic info.

JSON representation 
{
  "instances": [
    {
      object (InstanceBasicInfo)
    }
  ],
  "nextPageToken": string
}
Fields
instances[]

object (InstanceBasicInfo)

The list of instances.
nextPageToken

string

A token that can be sent as page_token to retrieve the next page. If this field is omitted, there are no subsequent pages.
JSON representation 
{
  "name": string,
  "id": string,
  "status": enum (Status),
  "machineType": string,
  "createTime": string,
  "guestAccelerators": [
    {
      object (AcceleratorConfig)
    }
  ]
}
Fields
name

string

Name of the instance.
id

string (uint64 format)

The unique identifier for the instance.
status

enum (Status)

The status of the instance.
machineType

string

The machine type of the instance.
createTime

string (Timestamp format)

Creation timestamp of the instance.

Uses RFC 3339, where generated output will always be Z-normalized and use 0, 3, 6 or 9 fractional digits. Offsets other than "Z" are also accepted. Examples: "2014-10-02T15:01:23Z", "2014-10-02T15:01:23.045123456Z" or "2014-10-02T15:01:23+05:30".
guestAccelerators[]

object (AcceleratorConfig)

Accelerators attached to the instance.
JSON representation 
{
  "seconds": string,
  "nanos": integer
}
Fields
seconds

string (int64 format)

Represents seconds of UTC time since Unix epoch 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z. Must be between -62135596800 and 253402300799 inclusive (which corresponds to 0001-01-01T00:00:00Z to 9999-12-31T23:59:59Z).
nanos

integer

Non-negative fractions of a second at nanosecond resolution. This field is the nanosecond portion of the duration, not an alternative to seconds. Negative second values with fractions must still have non-negative nanos values that count forward in time. Must be between 0 and 999,999,999 inclusive.
JSON representation 
{
  "acceleratorType": string,
  "acceleratorCount": integer,
  "acceleratorCountAlts": [
    integer
  ]
}
Fields
acceleratorType

string

Full or partial URL of the accelerator type resource to attach to this instance. For example: projects/my-project/zones/us-central1-c/acceleratorTypes/nvidia-tesla-p100 If you are creating an instance template, specify only the accelerator name. See GPUs on Compute Engine for a full list of accelerator types.
acceleratorCount

integer

The number of the guest accelerator cards exposed to this instance.
acceleratorCountAlts[]
(deprecated)

integer

Tool Annotations

Destructive Hint: ❌ | Idempotent Hint: ✅ | Read Only Hint: ✅ | Open World Hint: ❌