home / skills / julianobarbosa / claude-code-skills / grafana-skill

grafana-skill skill

/skills/grafana-skill

This skill helps you automate Grafana resource management via HTTP API, including dashboards, data sources, alerting, folders, and users.

npx playbooks add skill julianobarbosa/claude-code-skills --skill grafana-skill

Review the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.

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SKILL.md
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---
name: grafana-skill
description: Comprehensive skill for interacting with Grafana's HTTP API to manage dashboards, data sources, folders, alerting, annotations, users, teams, and organizations. Use when Claude needs to (1) Create, read, update, or delete Grafana dashboards, (2) Manage data sources and connections, (3) Configure alerting rules, contact points, and notification policies, (4) Work with folders and permissions, (5) Manage users, teams, and service accounts, (6) Create or query annotations, (7) Execute queries against data sources, or any other Grafana automation task via API.
---

# grafana-skill

Programmatically manage Grafana resources using TypeScript tools and HTTP API workflows.

## Workflow Routing

| Workflow | Trigger | File |
|----------|---------|------|
| **DashboardCrud** | "create dashboard", "update dashboard", "delete dashboard", "list dashboards", "export dashboard" | `Tools/DashboardCrud.ts` |
| **GrafanaClient** | "grafana API", "grafana client", "TypeScript grafana" | `Tools/GrafanaClient.ts` |
| **ApiReference** | "grafana API reference", "grafana endpoints" | `References/` |

## Tools

### DashboardCrud CLI

```bash
# Set environment variables
export GRAFANA_URL="https://grafana.example.com"
export GRAFANA_TOKEN="your-service-account-token"

# List dashboards
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts list
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts list --query production --tag monitoring

# Get dashboard by UID
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts get abc123

# Export dashboard to JSON
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts export abc123 --output dashboard.json

# Create dashboard from JSON file
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts create --file dashboard.json --folder my-folder

# Update dashboard
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts update abc123 --file updated.json --message "Updated panels"

# Clone dashboard
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts clone abc123 --title "Production Copy" --folder prod-folder

# View version history
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts versions abc123

# Restore to previous version
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts restore abc123 --version 5

# Delete dashboard
bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts delete abc123
```

### GrafanaClient TypeScript Library

```typescript
import { GrafanaClient, createGrafanaClient } from './Tools/GrafanaClient';

// Initialize from environment variables
const client = createGrafanaClient();

// Or with explicit config
const client = new GrafanaClient({
  baseUrl: 'https://grafana.example.com',
  token: 'your-service-account-token',
  orgId: 1, // optional
});

// Dashboard operations
const dashboards = await client.searchDashboards({ query: 'production', tag: 'monitoring' });
const dashboard = await client.getDashboardByUid('abc123');
const saved = await client.saveDashboard({ dashboard: myDashboard, folderUid: 'folder-uid' });
await client.deleteDashboard('abc123');

// Version management
const versions = await client.getDashboardVersions('abc123');
await client.restoreDashboardVersion('abc123', 5);

// Folders, Data sources, Alerting, Annotations also available
```

## Authentication

```bash
# Service Account Token (Recommended)
export GRAFANA_TOKEN="glsa_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

# Multi-Organization Header
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $GRAFANA_TOKEN" \
     -H "X-Grafana-Org-Id: 2" \
     https://grafana.example.com/api/org
```

## Quick API Reference

| Resource | List | Get | Create | Update | Delete |
|----------|------|-----|--------|--------|--------|
| Dashboards | `GET /api/search` | `GET /api/dashboards/uid/:uid` | `POST /api/dashboards/db` | `POST /api/dashboards/db` | `DELETE /api/dashboards/uid/:uid` |
| Folders | `GET /api/folders` | `GET /api/folders/:uid` | `POST /api/folders` | `PUT /api/folders/:uid` | `DELETE /api/folders/:uid` |
| Data Sources | `GET /api/datasources` | `GET /api/datasources/uid/:uid` | `POST /api/datasources` | `PUT /api/datasources/uid/:uid` | `DELETE /api/datasources/uid/:uid` |
| Alert Rules | `GET /api/v1/provisioning/alert-rules` | `GET /api/v1/provisioning/alert-rules/:uid` | `POST /api/v1/provisioning/alert-rules` | `PUT /api/v1/provisioning/alert-rules/:uid` | `DELETE /api/v1/provisioning/alert-rules/:uid` |

## Reference Documentation

- **[Dashboards](References/Dashboards.md)**: Complete dashboard CRUD, versions, permissions
- **[DataSources](References/DataSources.md)**: Data source management, queries, health checks
- **[Alerting](References/Alerting.md)**: Alert rules, contact points, notification policies
- **[Folders](References/Folders.md)**: Folder management and permissions
- **[Annotations](References/Annotations.md)**: Create, query, update annotations
- **[UsersTeams](References/UsersTeams.md)**: User management, team operations
- **[CommonPatterns](References/CommonPatterns.md)**: Error handling, pagination, utilities

## Examples

**Example 1: List and export dashboards**
```
User: "List all production dashboards and export them"
→ bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts list --tag production
→ For each: bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts export <uid>
→ Returns list of exported JSON files
```

**Example 2: Create dashboard from JSON**
```
User: "Create a new dashboard from this JSON file"
→ bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts create --file dashboard.json --folder monitoring
→ Returns new dashboard UID and URL
```

**Example 3: Clone dashboard to another folder**
```
User: "Clone the CPU dashboard to the production folder"
→ bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts clone cpu-uid --title "CPU Prod" --folder prod-folder
→ Returns cloned dashboard details
```

**Example 4: Restore dashboard version**
```
User: "Restore dashboard abc123 to version 5"
→ bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts versions abc123
→ bun run Tools/DashboardCrud.ts restore abc123 --version 5
→ Dashboard restored, new version created
```

**Example 5: Programmatic bulk update**
```typescript
User: "Write TypeScript to bulk update dashboard tags"
→ Uses GrafanaClient library:
   const client = createGrafanaClient();
   const dashboards = await client.searchDashboards({ tag: 'old-tag' });
   for (const dash of dashboards) {
     const full = await client.getDashboardByUid(dash.uid);
     full.dashboard.tags = full.dashboard.tags.filter(t => t !== 'old-tag');
     full.dashboard.tags.push('new-tag');
     await client.saveDashboard({ dashboard: full.dashboard, message: 'Updated tags' });
   }
```

## Error Handling

| Code | Description |
|------|-------------|
| 200 | Success |
| 400 | Bad request (invalid JSON, missing required fields) |
| 401 | Unauthorized (invalid/missing token) |
| 403 | Forbidden (insufficient permissions) |
| 404 | Not found |
| 409 | Conflict (resource already exists) |
| 412 | Precondition failed (version mismatch) |

## Tips

1. **Use UIDs over IDs**: UIDs are portable across Grafana instances
2. **Include version for updates**: Prevents overwriting concurrent changes
3. **Use `overwrite: true` carefully**: Only when you want to force-update
4. **Service accounts over API keys**: API keys are deprecated in newer Grafana versions

Overview

This skill provides comprehensive programmatic control of Grafana via its HTTP API. It covers creating, reading, updating, and deleting dashboards, data sources, folders, alerts, annotations, and user/team/org management. It is intended for automation, provisioning, and operational workflows against Grafana instances.

How this skill works

The skill wraps Grafana API endpoints into reusable workflows and a client library so you can call search, get, save, delete, and provisioning endpoints programmatically. It authenticates using a service account token or API token and supports organization scoping via headers. Common operations include dashboard CRUD with versioning, data source management, alert rule provisioning, folder and permission management, and annotation or query execution.

When to use it

  • Automating dashboard lifecycle tasks: create, update, clone, export, restore versions, or delete dashboards.
  • Provisioning and managing data sources and verifying connection health programmatically.
  • Configuring alerting: rules, contact points, and notification policies as code.
  • Managing folders, access control, users, teams, and organization-scoped operations.
  • Generating, querying, or importing annotations and executing data source queries for reports.

Best practices

  • Prefer UIDs over numeric IDs to keep resources portable across Grafana instances.
  • Include dashboard version when updating to avoid accidental overwrites and use overwrite:true only when intentional.
  • Use service account tokens for automation; set X-Grafana-Org-Id header when operating across orgs.
  • Handle pagination and rate limits; check HTTP codes (401/403/404/409/412) for deterministic retries.
  • Back up exported dashboard JSON before bulk operations and test changes in a staging Grafana first.

Example use cases

  • List all dashboards tagged 'production', export each to JSON, and store backups in a repo.
  • Create a new dashboard from a JSON file or clone an existing dashboard into a different folder.
  • Bulk-update dashboard tags across an organization using the client library in a script.
  • Provision a new Prometheus data source and run a health check before enabling dashboards.
  • Restore a dashboard to a previous version after an unwanted change or regression.

FAQ

How do I authenticate?

Use a Grafana service account token (preferred) or API token in the Authorization: Bearer header and set X-Grafana-Org-Id if targeting a specific organization.

Can I prevent overwriting concurrent edits?

Yes. Include the dashboard version when saving updates; Grafana returns 412 on version mismatches so you can reconcile changes before retrying.