Implement all Virtualization SDK functionality in Parallels CLI before removing

According to the release notes for Parallels 19.1, the Virtualization SDK is no longer supported and will be removed in a future release of Parallels Desktop.

Below is the list of features that are no longer supported and will be removed - not in version 19.3.0, but in the next major version of Parallels Desktop for Mac. None of the features mentioned below are business-critical, so these changes will have little to no effect on your workflow.
On all Mac computers, the following things are no longer supported:

• ...
• Parallels Virtualization SDK (see details here)
• ...

​

The release notes state that the decision was based on usage statistics from the Customer Experience Program, and they claim that the feature is "not business-critical". But a developer SDK will always have low usage since it's targeted at a very specific demographic, and it may very well be business-critical for the people who use it. It will have more than "little to no effect" on my workflow.

In my case, I wrote a command-line tool in Python that allows me to save, import, and customize complete VM configurations. I originally tried writing a shell script that uses the Parallels Command-Line Interface to achieve this, but there are several options that can not be configured with the CLI. The only way to configure every VM option is with the SDK. In fact, in order to configure everything, my Python script includes a C module that calls the Parallels C API.

I suspect that the main use case for users of the Parallels Virtualization SDK is automation and programatic customization, as it was for me. If the Parallels CLI is updated to include all of the VM configuration options that are available in the SDK, removing the SDK will be fine. Otherwise, its removal will cause the loss of an important Pro feature from a "Pro" product.

Please do not remove the Parallels Virtualization SDK until all of its functionality has been added to the Parallels Command-Line interface.

 

Correction: Parallels 19.1 should have been Parallels 19.3.

 

Hello @NSAbject ,
Thank you for your feedback, it's valuable. We're going to extend the prlctl/prlsrvctl support (Command-Line Interface) with the features available in SDK. Would you provide more details about the SDK functions that you use and that are yet to be available in Parallels Desktop CLI? The more details, the better