For Agents
Manage VM patch deployments, OS policy assignments, and inventory across Google Cloud Compute Engine fleets.
Get started with OS Config API in minutes using your preferred integration method.
# Add to your MCP client config (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf)
{
"jentic": {
"url": "https://api.jentic.com/mcp",
"auth": "oauth"
}
}
# Then ask your agent:
"schedule a google cloud vm patch deployment"
# → Jentic returns the GET /events tool with parameter schema, agent executes.What an agent can do with OS Config API API.
Schedule patch deployments with maintenance windows and reboot policies
Declare desired OS state via OS policy assignments and roll them out across zones
Pause and resume patch deployments and OS policy assignments mid-rollout
Read inventory of installed packages and detected vulnerabilities per VM
GET STARTED
Use for: Schedule a monthly patch deployment for production Linux VMs, Pause an in-flight OS policy rollout, List inventory of packages on a specific VM, Resume a previously paused patch deployment
Not supported: Does not provision VMs, run ad-hoc shell commands, or scan container images — use for declarative VM patching, OS policy assignment, and inventory only.
The OS Config API manages patch deployments, OS policy assignments, and inventory across Compute Engine VM fleets. It schedules patch jobs (with maintenance windows, reboot behaviour, and rollout strategies), declares desired OS state via OS Policies, and surfaces inventory and patch compliance per instance. Use it to keep Linux and Windows VM fleets compliant with security baselines and to drive scheduled patch rollouts. The spec exposes 17 endpoints.
List revisions of an OS policy assignment to support rollback decisions
Cancel patch operations that are no longer wanted
Patterns agents use OS Config API API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Scheduled patch rollouts with maintenance windows
Schedule patch deployments that target a labelled fleet of VMs, restrict execution to defined maintenance windows, and choose whether to reboot. The OS Config API lets platform teams roll patches out in waves — for example dev first, then prod — and pause if early indicators look bad. This replaces ad-hoc SSH-and-apt scripts with a managed rollout plane.
Create a patch deployment named monthly-linux-prod that targets instances with label tier=prod and runs the third Sunday of the month between 02:00 and 04:00 UTC.
Desired-state OS policy management
Declare OS policies that assert package presence, file content, and shell-script execution on Linux and Windows VMs, then bind them to zones and instance filters via os policy assignments. The API tracks revisions so you can roll back to the prior policy if a change breaks workloads. Useful for fleets that need configuration drift detection without a separate config-management tool.
Create an OS policy assignment that ensures the package fail2ban is present on all Linux VMs in zone europe-west1-b, then list revisions to confirm the rollout.
Inventory and compliance reporting
Pull VM inventory — installed packages, configured services, and detected vulnerabilities — to feed compliance dashboards or security review tooling. The OS Config API surfaces inventories per instance plus aggregate patch compliance views, so an automation can produce a compliance score across thousands of VMs without remote command execution.
List inventory for every VM in zone us-central1-a, write the package list per instance to a Cloud Storage bucket, and flag any instance reporting a CRITICAL vulnerability.
Agent-driven patch operations via Jentic
An ops agent reacting to a CVE can use Jentic to schedule a patch deployment that closes the gap and watch the rollout via the operations endpoint. Credentials stay in the Jentic vault, so the agent runs under a scoped service-account token with audit trail. Useful for incident-response bots that need to mass-patch a fleet quickly.
Use Jentic to find the create-patch-deployment operation, load its schema, and schedule a one-off patch for tier=prod Linux VMs targeting CVE-2026-0001 within the next 4 hours.
17 endpoints — the os config api manages patch deployments, os policy assignments, and inventory across compute engine vm fleets.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
/v1/{+parent}/patchDeployments
Create a patch deployment
/v1/{+name}:pause
Pause a patch deployment
/v1/{+name}:resume
Resume a paused patch deployment
/v1/{+parent}/osPolicyAssignments
Create an OS policy assignment
/v1/{+name}:listRevisions
List OS policy assignment revisions
/v1/{+parent}/inventories
List VM inventory
/v1/{+parent}/instanceDetails
List per-instance compliance details
/v1/{+parent}/patchDeployments
Create a patch deployment
/v1/{+name}:pause
Pause a patch deployment
/v1/{+name}:resume
Resume a paused patch deployment
/v1/{+parent}/osPolicyAssignments
Create an OS policy assignment
/v1/{+name}:listRevisions
List OS policy assignment revisions
Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.
Credential isolation
Google OAuth 2.0 tokens are minted from a service account stored in the Jentic vault (MAXsystem). Agents act under scoped, short-lived tokens — the service-account key never enters their context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic with intents like schedule patch deployment or apply os policy and Jentic returns the matching OS Config operation, its scopes, and its input schema.
Time to first call
Direct integration: 1-2 days for OAuth, instance filters, and operation polling. Through Jentic: under 30 minutes — search, load, execute.
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
Compute Engine API
Compute Engine owns the VM instances that OS Config patches and configures
Use Compute Engine when the agent needs to create, resize, or label VMs; use OS Config to keep them patched and configured.
On-Demand Scanning API
On-Demand Scanning surfaces container CVEs that can drive OS Config patch decisions for hosts
Use On-Demand Scanning for container image vulnerabilities; use OS Config for the host OS package patching that closes related gaps.
Container Analysis API
Container Analysis offers vulnerability data on artefacts rather than running VMs
Use Container Analysis when the unit of patching is an image; use OS Config when the unit is a running VM.
Specific to using OS Config API API through Jentic.
What authentication does the OS Config API use?
The API uses Google OAuth 2.0 with the cloud-platform scope. Through Jentic, tokens are minted from a service account stored in the Jentic vault so agents never see raw credentials.
Can I target VMs by label with patch deployments?
Yes. The patch deployment instanceFilter accepts label selectors and zone filters, so you can scope a deployment to tier=prod or env=staging across selected zones.
What are the rate limits for the OS Config API?
Google Cloud applies per-project quotas on patch and OS policy mutations. Treat large rollouts as long-running — patch jobs and OS policy assignments return operations that need polling rather than retry on failure.
How do I pause a patch deployment through Jentic?
Search Jentic for pause patch deployment, load the schema for POST /v1/{+name}:pause, and execute it with the deployment resource name. Resume later with the matching :resume call.
Does this API run arbitrary commands on a VM?
Only via OS policy resources of type ExecResource and only as part of a declared policy. Ad-hoc command execution belongs in different products (SSH, IAP) — this API is for declarative state and patch orchestration.
How do I check patch compliance for a project?
Call GET /v1/{+parent}/instanceDetails for an OS policy assignment to see per-instance compliance, or pull patchJob status for the latest patch deployment run to see fleet-level results.
/v1/{+parent}/inventories
List VM inventory
/v1/{+parent}/instanceDetails
List per-instance compliance details