A modern CLI tool to perform a pre-change validation on Nexus Dashboard Insights. It can either work with provided JSON file(s) or a terraform plan output from a Network as Code project. It waits for the analysis to complete and evaluates the results.
$ nexus-pcv --help
Usage: nexus-pcv [OPTIONS]
A CLI tool to perform a pre-change validation on Nexus Dashboard Insights.
╭─ Options ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ * --hostname-ip -i TEXT ND hostname or IP. │
│ [env var: PCV_HOSTNAME_IP] │
│ [required] │
│ * --username -u TEXT ND username. [env var: PCV_USERNAME] │
│ [required] │
│ * --password -p TEXT ND password. [env var: PCV_PASSWORD] │
│ [required] │
│ * --site -s TEXT NDI site or fabric name. │
│ [env var: PCV_SITE] │
│ [required] │
│ * --name -n TEXT NDI pre-change validation name. │
│ [env var: PCV_NAME] │
│ [required] │
│ --domain -d TEXT ND login domain. │
│ [env var: PCV_DOMAIN] │
│ [default: local] │
│ --group -g TEXT NDI insights group name. │
│ [env var: PCV_GROUP] │
│ [default: default] │
│ --timeout INTEGER NDI pre-change validation timeout in │
│ minutes. │
│ [env var: PCV_TIMEOUT] │
│ [default: 15] │
│ --suppress-events TEXT NDI comma-separated list of events to │
│ suppress. │
│ [env var: PCV_SUPPRESS_EVENTS] │
│ [default: │
│ APP_EPG_NOT_DEPLOYED,APP_EPG_HAS_NO_… │
│ --file -f FILE NDI proposed change JSON file. │
│ [env var: PCV_FILE] │
│ --nac-tf-plan -t FILE NDI proposed change Terraform plan │
│ output. │
│ [env var: PCV_NAC_TF_PLAN] │
│ --output-summary -o FILE NDI summary of new events/anomalies │
│ written to a file. │
│ [env var: PCV_OUTPUT_SUMMARY] │
│ --output-url -r FILE NDI link (URL) to pre-change │
│ validation results written to a file. │
│ [env var: PCV_OUTPUT_URL] │
│ --verbosity -v TEXT Either CRITICAL, ERROR, WARNING, INFO │
│ or DEBUG. │
│ [default: WARNING] │
│ --version Show the version and exit. │
│ --help Show this message and exit. │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
Python 3.10+ is required to install nexus-pcv. Don't have Python 3.10 or later? See Python 3 Installation & Setup Guide.
nexus-pcv can be installed using pip:
pip install nexus-pcv
or using uv:
uv tool install nexus-pcv
The tool can easily be integrated with CI/CD workflows. Arguments can either be provided via command line or environment variables. The tool will exit with a non-zero exit code in case of an error or non-suppressed events being discovered during the pre-change analysis. The --output-summary and --output-url arguments can be used to write a summary and/or a link (URL) to a file, which can then be embedded into notifications (e.g., Webex).
Network as Code for ACI allows users to instantiate network fabrics in minutes using an easy to use, opinionated data model. More information about Network as Code can be found here. A planned change can be validated before applying it to a production environment by running a terraform plan operation first and then providing the output to nexus-pcv to trigger a pre-change validation.
export PCV_HOSTNAME_IP=10.1.1.1
export PCV_USERNAME=admin
export PCV_PASSWORD=Cisco123
export PCV_GROUP=LAB
export PCV_SITE=LAB1
terraform plan -out=plan.tfplan
terraform show -json plan.tfplan > plan.json
nexus-pcv --name "PCV1" --nac-tf-plan plan.json