Can't seem to script adding virtual disks to existing VM's. (Fusion Pro 12)

Question

I'm developing some automation to create vmware vm's and trying to create additional data disks for each vm. I can create the disks fine using vmware-vdiskmanager:

Example:

vmware-vdiskmanager -c -a nvme -s 10GB -t 0 datadisk01.vmdk
vmware-vdiskmanager -c -a nvme -s 10GB -t 0 datadisk02.vmdk

I then add the following to the *.vmx file (while the vm is powered down)

nvme1:0.fileName = "datadisk01.vmdk"
nvme1:0.present = "TRUE"
nvme2:0.fileName = "datadisk02.vmdk"
nvme2:0.present = "TRUE"

When I start the vm, both the entries above are immediately changed to "FALSE" while the vm is "posting".

So I then tried setting specific nvme subnqnUUID's:

nvme1.subnqnUUID = "52 92 88 43 5b 51 06 72-0a bb ad 61 ea 55 11 29"
nvme2.subnqnUUID = "52 92 88 43 5b 51 06 72-0a bb ad 61 ea 55 11 30"

Same problem.

Is there anyway to automate this? Seems silly they have a command line tool to create virtualdisks but no way to assign them.

I even tried creating the virtual disks as above, and them manually adding them to the vm using the virtual machine library BUI, I click "add device", "existing disk", select my virtual disk and click apply. What is does it creates a copy of the disk with the name "datadisk01 2.vmdk" (yes, it puts a space in the name also, LMAO)

I can't find any way to make disks available to a vm without using the virtual machine library BUI.

Thx for any help