How to check for vCenter Server updates with the vSphere Python API?

I want to automate the checking of new vCenter Server updates with the vSphere Python API with the intent in mind to then be able to decide with a prompt if I should update or not.

I checked for existing scripts and went through the API documentation but the python examples are scarce and the vCenter Server update/upgrade category is very lackluster and lacks any python code. IS it even possible to achieve what I want from python? Even if it's something else, it would still be fine, but the goal is not to have to upgrade from the Vsphere client itself.

Solution

Without leveraging the Python API but using the REST API instead, I managed to achieve my goal using this:

import requests
import json

import config

def main():
    session = requests.Session()

    sess = session.post(f"https://{config.server}/rest/com/vmware/cis/session", auth=(config.username, config.password), verify=False)
    session_id = sess.json()['value']

    get_upgrade_url = f"https://{config.server}/api/vcenter/deployment/upgrade"
    response = session.get(get_upgrade_url, headers={'vmware-api-session-id': session_id}, verify=False)

    ########### JSON Handling
    json_object = json.loads(response.text)
    json_formatted_str = json.dumps(json_object, indent=2)
    print(json_formatted_str)
    ######################

    check_upgrade_url = f"https://{config.server}/rest/appliance/update/pending?source_type=LAST_CHECK"
    check_response = session.get(check_upgrade_url, headers={'vmware-api-session-id': session_id}, verify=False)
    print(check_response)

    ########### JSON Handling
    json_object = json.loads(check_response.text)
    json_formatted_str = json.dumps(json_object, indent=2)
    print(json_formatted_str)
    ######################

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()