Google OS Config API
Browse all Google APIs✓ Official Vendor SpecCloud InfrastructureComputeoauth217 EndpointsREST
For Agents
Manage VM patch deployments, OS policy assignments, and inventory across Google Cloud Compute Engine fleets.
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.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the OS Config API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the OS Config API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
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Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with OS Config 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
List revisions of an OS policy assignment to support rollback decisions
Cancel patch operations that are no longer wanted
Use Cases
Patterns agents use OS Config 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.
Key Endpoints
17 endpoints — the os config api manages patch deployments, os policy assignments, and inventory across compute engine vm fleets.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
POST
/v1/{+parent}/patchDeployments
Create a patch deployment
POST
/v1/{+name}:pause
Pause a patch deployment
POST
/v1/{+name}:resume
Resume a paused patch deployment
POST
/v1/{+parent}/osPolicyAssignments
Create an OS policy assignment
GET
/v1/{+name}:listRevisions
List OS policy assignment revisions
GET
/v1/{+parent}/inventories
List VM inventory
GET
/v1/{+parent}/instanceDetails
List per-instance compliance details
POST
/v1/{+parent}/patchDeployments
Create a patch deployment
POST
/v1/{+name}:pause
Pause a patch deployment
POST
/v1/{+name}:resume
Resume a paused patch deployment
POST
/v1/{+parent}/osPolicyAssignments
Create an OS policy assignment
GET
/v1/{+name}:listRevisions
List OS policy assignment revisions
GET
/v1/{+parent}/inventories
List VM inventory
GET
/v1/{+parent}/instanceDetails
List per-instance compliance details
Why Jentic?
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.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using OS Config 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.
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