Grafana MCP server for AI agents

The Grafana MCP server provides access to your Grafana instance and ecosystem through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It allows AI assistants to interact with Grafana dashboards, datasources, alerts, and other services through a standardized interface.

Installation Options

Using Docker

The Docker image provides the simplest installation method, with three possible transport modes:

STDIO Mode (Recommended for Claude Desktop)

docker pull mcp/grafana
docker run --rm -i -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 -e GRAFANA_API_KEY=<your service account token> mcp/grafana -t stdio

SSE Mode

docker pull mcp/grafana
docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 -e GRAFANA_API_KEY=<your service account token> mcp/grafana

Streamable HTTP Mode

docker pull mcp/grafana
docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 -e GRAFANA_API_KEY=<your service account token> mcp/grafana -t streamable-http

Installing the Binary

Download the latest release from the releases page and place it in your $PATH.

Building from Source

If you have Go installed:

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

Configuration Setup

Prerequisites

Create a service account in Grafana with appropriate permissions
Generate a service account token

Claude Desktop Configuration

Using the Binary

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

If you see Error: spawn mcp-grafana ENOENT, specify the full path to the binary.

Using Docker

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

VSCode with Remote MCP Server

If using VSCode with an SSE mode server, add to .vscode/settings.json:

"mcp": {
  "servers": {
    "grafana": {
      "type": "sse",
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/sse"
    }
  }
}

Available Features and Tools

Dashboards

Search for dashboards
Get dashboard by UID
Update or create dashboards
Get panel queries and datasource info

Datasources

List and get detailed datasource information
Supported types: Prometheus, Loki

Prometheus Querying

Execute PromQL queries
Query Prometheus metadata

Loki Querying

Query logs and metrics with LogQL
Retrieve label metadata

Incidents

Search, create, update, and close incidents

Sift Investigations

Create and manage Sift investigations
Find error patterns and slow requests

Alerting

List and fetch alert rules
List contact points

Grafana OnCall

Manage on-call schedules
View current on-call users
List teams and users

Admin

List teams and users

Advanced Configuration

Debug Mode

Add the -debug flag to enable detailed logging of HTTP requests and responses:

Binary configuration with debug:

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

Docker configuration with debug:

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

TLS Configuration

For secure connections, the following options are available:

--tls-cert-file: Path to TLS certificate file
--tls-key-file: Path to TLS private key file
--tls-ca-file: Path to TLS CA certificate file
--tls-skip-verify: Skip TLS certificate verification (for testing only)

Example with client certificate authentication:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "mcp-grafana",
      "args": [
        "--tls-cert-file", "/path/to/client.crt",
        "--tls-key-file", "/path/to/client.key",
        "--tls-ca-file", "/path/to/ca.crt"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "https://secure-grafana.example.com",
        "GRAFANA_API_KEY": "<your service account token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Docker example with TLS:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--rm",
        "-i",
        "-v", "/path/to/certs:/certs:ro",
        "-e", "GRAFANA_URL",
        "-e", "GRAFANA_API_KEY",
        "mcp/grafana",
        "-t", "stdio",
        "--tls-cert-file", "/certs/client.crt",
        "--tls-key-file", "/certs/client.key",
        "--tls-ca-file", "/certs/ca.crt"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "https://secure-grafana.example.com",
        "GRAFANA_API_KEY": "<your service account token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Disabling Tool Categories

To reduce context window usage, you can disable specific tool categories:

mcp-grafana --disable-oncall --disable-sift

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