Grafana Oss

Grafana OSS

Docs: https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest.md

Common Workflows

Provisioning dashboards from disk

1. Drop dashboard JSON file(s) under /var/lib/grafana/dashboards/

2. Add a provider in provisioning/dashboards/default.yaml (see § Dashboard provisioning below)

3. Restart Grafana so the provider config is loaded

4. Verify the dashboard landed:

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   curl https://grafana.example.com/api/dashboards/uid/<uid> \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" | jq '.dashboard.title'

   Returns the title → success. 404 → provisioning didn't pick it up; check Grafana server logs (journalctl -u grafana-server | grep -i provisioning) for parse errors.

Provisioning data sources

1. Write provisioning/datasources/datasources.yaml (see § Data source provisioning below)

2. Restart Grafana

3. Health-check the data source via API:

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   curl https://grafana.example.com/api/datasources/uid/<uid>/health \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>"
   # { "status": "OK", "message": "..." } → working
   # { "status": "ERROR", ... } → URL unreachable or auth misconfigured

Creating a service account + token

1. Provision via YAML or POST /api/serviceaccounts (full API in references/api.md § Users + service accounts)

2. Mint a token via POST /api/serviceaccounts/{id}/tokens

3. Verify the token works:

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   curl https://grafana.example.com/api/org \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <new-token>"
   # 200 + org JSON → token + role assignment work
   # 401 → token wrong; 403 → role wrong

Dashboard provisioning

# provisioning/dashboards/default.yaml
apiVersion: 1
providers:
  - name: default
    folder: MyFolder
    type: file
    disableDeletion: false
    updateIntervalSeconds: 30
    options:
      path: /var/lib/grafana/dashboards
      foldersFromFilesStructure: true

For the dashboard JSON shape itself (panels, queries, template variables), see references/dashboard-json.md.

Data source provisioning

# provisioning/datasources/datasources.yaml
apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Prometheus
    type: prometheus
    access: proxy
    url: http://prometheus:9090
    isDefault: true
    jsonData:
      timeInterval: 15s
      httpMethod: POST

  - name: Loki
    type: loki
    access: proxy
    url: http://loki:3100

  - name: Tempo
    type: tempo
    access: proxy
    url: http://tempo:3200
    jsonData:
      tracesToLogsV2:
        datasourceUid: loki_uid
        tags: [{ key: "service.name", value: "app" }]
      serviceMap:
        datasourceUid: prometheus_uid
      nodeGraph:
        enabled: true

  - name: Pyroscope
    type: grafana-pyroscope-datasource
    url: http://pyroscope:4040

RBAC (built-in roles)

Service-account provisioning:

# provisioning/access-control/service_accounts.yaml
apiVersion: 1
serviceAccounts:
  - name: ci-reader
    orgId: 1
    role: Viewer
    tokens:
      - name: ci-token
        # expires: optional ISO 8601 timestamp; omit for no-expiry tokens

(Custom RBAC roles with fine-grained permissions are Enterprise / Cloud only — see the grafana-cloud/admin skill if you need those.)

Plugin provisioning

# provisioning/plugins/plugins.yaml
apiVersion: 1
apps:
  - type: grafana-pyroscope-app
    disabled: false
    jsonData:
      backendUrl: http://pyroscope:4040

After restart, verify via GET /api/plugins/<plugin-id>/health.

References

• references/dashboard-json.md — full dashboard JSON model + template variables + common problems (uid uniqueness, gridPos arithmetic, datasource uid matching)

• references/dashboards.md — dashboard workflows, settings, variables, annotations, sharing, versions, playlists, and provisioning-as-code

• references/datasources.md — data source setup and query examples for Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, SQL, CloudWatch, and plugins

• references/panel-types.md — panel-type table + decision guide for picking the right one

• references/panels.md — panel editor, visualization options, field config, transformations, query options, inspection, and performance tips

• references/alerting.md — alerting concepts, contact points, notification policies, templates, silences, and common rule examples

• references/api.md — full Grafana OSS API reference (dashboards, data sources, users, service accounts, annotations) with verification curls and common failure modes

• references/config.md — grafana.ini server / database / SMTP / auth / security / feature-toggle config + restart-required issues