Grafana MCP server

The Grafana MCP server provides a powerful interface for interacting with Grafana instances through the Model Context Protocol. This tool enables you to access dashboards, metrics, logs, and other Grafana resources programmatically.

Installation

You can install the Grafana MCP server using one of several methods:

Using Docker

docker pull mcp/grafana

For STDIO mode (recommended for direct integration with AI assistants):

docker run --rm -i \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your-token> \
  mcp/grafana -t stdio

For SSE mode:

docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your-token> \
  mcp/grafana

For Streamable HTTP mode:

docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your-token> \
  mcp/grafana -t streamable-http

Download Binary

Download the latest release from the releases page and add it to your PATH.

Build from Source

GOBIN="$HOME/go/bin" go install github.com/grafana/mcp-grafana/cmd/mcp-grafana@latest

Deploy with Helm

helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts
helm install --set grafana.apiKey=<Grafana_ApiKey> --set grafana.url=<GrafanaUrl> my-release grafana/grafana-mcp

Configuration

Authentication

You can authenticate with Grafana using either:

1. Service account token (recommended):

   GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your-token>
   

2. Username and password:

   GRAFANA_USERNAME=<your-username>
   GRAFANA_PASSWORD=<your-password>
   

Client Configuration

For Claude Desktop, add this to your configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "mcp-grafana",
      "args": [],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your-token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

For Docker with Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--rm",
        "-i",
        "-e",
        "GRAFANA_URL",
        "-e",
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN",
        "mcp/grafana",
        "-t",
        "stdio"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your-token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Multi-Organization Support

Specify which organization to interact with:

GRAFANA_ORG_ID=1

TLS Configuration

For client certificates when connecting to Grafana:

mcp-grafana \
  --tls-cert-file /path/to/client.crt \
  --tls-key-file /path/to/client.key \
  --tls-ca-file /path/to/ca.crt

For HTTPS when using streamable HTTP transport:

mcp-grafana \
  -t streamable-http \
  --server.tls-cert-file /path/to/server.crt \
  --server.tls-key-file /path/to/server.key \
  -addr :8443

Features

Available Tools

The Grafana MCP server provides access to numerous Grafana features:

Dashboard Management

• Search dashboards
• Get dashboard details
• Update dashboards
• Get panel queries and datasource information

Datasource Operations

• List and fetch datasource information
• Query Prometheus metrics and metadata
• Query Loki logs and metadata

Incident Management

• Search, create, and update incidents

Alert Management

• List and view alert rules
• List contact points

Annotations

• Query and create annotations
• Update annotation properties
• List annotation tags

Other Features

• Grafana OnCall integration
• Sift investigations
• Admin tools (list teams/users)
• URL deeplink generation

Tool Categories and Required Permissions

Each tool requires specific RBAC permissions. For example:

• Dashboard tools need dashboards:read or dashboards:write
• Datasource tools need datasources:read or datasources:query
• Alerting tools need alert.rules:read

You can disable specific tool categories using flags like --disable-dashboard or --disable-write (for read-only mode).

Debug Mode

Enable detailed logging with the --debug flag:

mcp-grafana --debug

Health Check

When using SSE or streamable HTTP transport, access the health endpoint:

GET /healthz

Troubleshooting

If you encounter datasource API errors with the message "id is invalid", you likely need to upgrade to Grafana version 9.0 or later.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "grafana" '{"command":"mcp-grafana","args":[],"env":{"GRAFANA_URL":"http://localhost:3000","GRAFANA_API_KEY":"<your service account token>"}}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "grafana": {
            "command": "mcp-grafana",
            "args": [],
            "env": {
                "GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",
                "GRAFANA_API_KEY": "<your service account token>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "grafana": {
            "command": "mcp-grafana",
            "args": [],
            "env": {
                "GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",
                "GRAFANA_API_KEY": "<your service account token>"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect