1. A system comprising: a virtual machine resource platform to host a virtual compute node; and a resource manager to: install an interface to receive an adapter configured to initiate an action that operates on the virtual compute node; install the adapter by processing an adapter definition to identify an action specified by the adapter; trigger an alert based on collected data associated with the virtual compute node; in response to the alert, trigger the action to be executed using a parameter extracted from the collected data; and execute the action to operate on the compute node.