Grafana MCP server for AI agents

The Grafana MCP (Model Context Protocol) server allows AI assistants to interact with Grafana instances, providing programmatic access to dashboards, alerts, metrics, logs, and other Grafana features through a standardized interface.

Installation

There are several ways to install the Grafana MCP server:

Using Docker (Recommended)

The Docker image runs in SSE mode by default, but you can override it to use different modes:

STDIO Mode (for direct integration with AI assistants)

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

SSE Mode (HTTP server mode)

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

Streamable HTTP Mode

docker pull mcp/grafana
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 place it in your PATH.

Build from Source

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

Kubernetes Installation

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

Client Configuration

For Claude Desktop

Using Binary:

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

Using Docker:

{
  "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>"
      }
    }
  }
}

For VSCode with remote MCP server:

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

Features

The MCP server provides access to various Grafana features:

Dashboards

Search for dashboards
Get dashboard details by UID
View dashboard summaries
Extract specific dashboard properties
Update or create dashboards
Get panel queries and datasource information

Datasources

List and fetch datasource information

Queries

Execute Prometheus queries
Retrieve Prometheus metadata
Run Loki log and metric queries
Get Loki metadata

Incidents and Alerts

Search, create, and update incidents
List and manage alert rules
List contact points

Additional Features

OnCall schedule management
Sift investigations
Profile management with Pyroscope
Navigation and deeplink generation

Advanced Configuration

Debug Mode

Add -debug flag to see detailed HTTP request/response logs:

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

TLS Configuration

For Grafana instances requiring TLS:

{
  "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_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your-token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Server TLS (Streamable HTTP Only)

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

Troubleshooting

If you see datasource-related errors like:

get datasource by uid : [GET /datasources/uid/{uid}][400] getDataSourceByUidBadRequest {"message":"id is invalid"}

You need Grafana version 9.0 or later for full compatibility.

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