How to programmatically delete a VM from VMware Fusion

delete_fusion_vm_from_plist.rb

# The primary fusion app must be closed for this to work.
# It appears that the primary fusion app holds the plist data in memory
# and will write the changes to disk when it closes
# (including overwriting any changes made by another app).
# You should not have any issues if you execute this when there are
# headless VMs running (i.e. 'vmrun start $path_to_vmx nogui').

require 'cfpropertylist'
plist_file_path = '/Users/tbishop/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist'
existing_plist = CFPropertyList::List.new(:file => plist_file_path)
data = CFPropertyList.native_types(existing_plist.value)
vm_name = 'my_test'
vm_path = ''

# get the vm path for later
data['VMFavoritesListDefaults2'].each do |vm|
  if vm['name'] == vm_name
    vm_path = vm['path']
    break
  end
end


# this appears to be the list of VM console windows to open when fusion starts
# if there are no VM console windows to open, this key doesn't exist
if data.has_key?('PLRestartDocumentPaths')
  data['PLRestartDocumentPaths'].delete_if { |path| path == vm_path }
end

data['VMFavoritesListDefaults2'].delete_if { |vm| vm['name'] == vm_name}

# save the updated data
new_list = CFPropertyList::List.new
new_list.value = CFPropertyList.guess(data)
new_list.save plist_file_path, CFPropertyList::List::FORMAT_BINARY

delete_vm_files.sh

# I *think* this requires the primary fusion app to be closed.
# This appears to only cleanup the file system and not the plist data.
/Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmrun -T fusion deleteVM /vm/my_test.vmwarevm/my_test.vmx

In my testing deleteVM does not work while Fusion is running.