A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Grafana.
This provides access to your Grafana instance and the surrounding ecosystem.
RequirementsThe following features are currently available in MCP server. This list is for informational purposes only and does not represent a roadmap or commitment to future features.
DashboardsThe list of tools is configurable, so you can choose which tools you want to make available to the MCP client. This is useful if you don't use certain functionality or if you don't want to take up too much of the context window. To disable a category of tools, use the --disable-<category>
flag when starting the server. For example, to disable the OnCall tools, use --disable-oncall
.
Each tool requires specific RBAC permissions to function properly. When creating a service account for the MCP server, ensure it has the necessary permissions based on which tools you plan to use. The permissions listed are the minimum required actions - you may also need appropriate scopes (e.g., datasources:*
, dashboards:*
, folders:*
) depending on your use case.
Note: Grafana Incident and Sift tools use basic Grafana roles instead of fine-grained RBAC permissions:
For more information about Grafana RBAC, see the official documentation.
RBAC ScopesScopes define the specific resources that permissions apply to. Each action requires both the appropriate permission and scope combination.
Common Scope Patterns:
Broad access: Use *
wildcards for organization-wide access
datasources:*
- Access to all datasourcesdashboards:*
- Access to all dashboardsfolders:*
- Access to all foldersteams:*
- Access to all teamsLimited access: Use specific UIDs or IDs to restrict access to individual resources
datasources:uid:prometheus-uid
- Access only to a specific Prometheus datasourcedashboards:uid:abc123
- Access only to dashboard with UID abc123
folders:uid:xyz789
- Access only to folder with UID xyz789
teams:id:5
- Access only to team with ID 5
global.users:id:123
- Access only to user with ID 123
Examples:
Full MCP server access: Grant broad permissions for all tools
datasources:* (datasources:read, datasources:query)
dashboards:* (dashboards:read, dashboards:create, dashboards:write)
folders:* (for dashboard creation and alert rules)
teams:* (teams:read)
global.users:* (users:read)
Limited datasource access: Only query specific Prometheus and Loki instances
datasources:uid:prometheus-prod (datasources:query)
datasources:uid:loki-prod (datasources:query)
Dashboard-specific access: Read only specific dashboards
dashboards:uid:monitoring-dashboard (dashboards:read)
dashboards:uid:alerts-dashboard (dashboards:read)
list_teams
Admin List all teams teams:read
teams:*
or teams:id:1
list_users_by_org
Admin List all users in an organization users:read
global.users:*
or global.users:id:123
search_dashboards
Search Search for dashboards dashboards:read
dashboards:*
or dashboards:uid:abc123
get_dashboard_by_uid
Dashboard Get a dashboard by uid dashboards:read
dashboards:uid:abc123
update_dashboard
Dashboard Update or create a new dashboard dashboards:create
, dashboards:write
dashboards:*
, folders:*
or folders:uid:xyz789
get_dashboard_panel_queries
Dashboard Get panel title, queries, datasource UID and type from a dashboard dashboards:read
dashboards:uid:abc123
list_datasources
Datasources List datasources datasources:read
datasources:*
get_datasource_by_uid
Datasources Get a datasource by uid datasources:read
datasources:uid:prometheus-uid
get_datasource_by_name
Datasources Get a datasource by name datasources:read
datasources:*
or datasources:uid:loki-uid
query_prometheus
Prometheus Execute a query against a Prometheus datasource datasources:query
datasources:uid:prometheus-uid
list_prometheus_metric_metadata
Prometheus List metric metadata datasources:query
datasources:uid:prometheus-uid
list_prometheus_metric_names
Prometheus List available metric names datasources:query
datasources:uid:prometheus-uid
list_prometheus_label_names
Prometheus List label names matching a selector datasources:query
datasources:uid:prometheus-uid
list_prometheus_label_values
Prometheus List values for a specific label datasources:query
datasources:uid:prometheus-uid
list_incidents
Incident List incidents in Grafana Incident Viewer role N/A create_incident
Incident Create an incident in Grafana Incident Editor role N/A add_activity_to_incident
Incident Add an activity item to an incident in Grafana Incident Editor role N/A get_incident
Incident Get a single incident by ID Viewer role N/A query_loki_logs
Loki Query and retrieve logs using LogQL (either log or metric queries) datasources:query
datasources:uid:loki-uid
list_loki_label_names
Loki List all available label names in logs datasources:query
datasources:uid:loki-uid
list_loki_label_values
Loki List values for a specific log label datasources:query
datasources:uid:loki-uid
query_loki_stats
Loki Get statistics about log streams datasources:query
datasources:uid:loki-uid
list_alert_rules
Alerting List alert rules alert.rules:read
folders:*
or folders:uid:alerts-folder
get_alert_rule_by_uid
Alerting Get alert rule by UID alert.rules:read
folders:uid:alerts-folder
list_contact_points
Alerting List notification contact points alert.notifications:read
Global scope list_oncall_schedules
OnCall List schedules from Grafana OnCall grafana-oncall-app.schedules:read
Plugin-specific scopes get_oncall_shift
OnCall Get details for a specific OnCall shift grafana-oncall-app.schedules:read
Plugin-specific scopes get_current_oncall_users
OnCall Get users currently on-call for a specific schedule grafana-oncall-app.schedules:read
Plugin-specific scopes list_oncall_teams
OnCall List teams from Grafana OnCall grafana-oncall-app.user-settings:read
Plugin-specific scopes list_oncall_users
OnCall List users from Grafana OnCall grafana-oncall-app.user-settings:read
Plugin-specific scopes get_sift_investigation
Sift Retrieve an existing Sift investigation by its UUID Viewer role N/A get_sift_analysis
Sift Retrieve a specific analysis from a Sift investigation Viewer role N/A list_sift_investigations
Sift Retrieve a list of Sift investigations with an optional limit Viewer role N/A find_error_pattern_logs
Sift Finds elevated error patterns in Loki logs. Editor role N/A find_slow_requests
Sift Finds slow requests from the relevant tempo datasources. Editor role N/A list_pyroscope_label_names
Pyroscope List label names matching a selector datasources:query
datasources:uid:pyroscope-uid
list_pyroscope_label_values
Pyroscope List label values matching a selector for a label name datasources:query
datasources:uid:pyroscope-uid
list_pyroscope_profile_types
Pyroscope List available profile types datasources:query
datasources:uid:pyroscope-uid
fetch_pyroscope_profile
Pyroscope Fetches a profile in DOT format for analysis datasources:query
datasources:uid:pyroscope-uid
get_assertions
Asserts Get assertion summary for a given entity Plugin-specific permissions Plugin-specific scopes Usage
Create a service account in Grafana with enough permissions to use the tools you want to use, generate a service account token, and copy it to the clipboard for use in the configuration file. Follow the Grafana documentation for details.
You have several options to install mcp-grafana
:
Docker image: Use the pre-built Docker image from Docker Hub.
Important: The Docker image's entrypoint is configured to run the MCP server in SSE mode by default, but most users will want to use STDIO mode for direct integration with AI assistants like Claude Desktop:
-t stdio
and include the -i
flag to keep stdin open: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
-p
flag: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
-p
flag: For this mode you must explicitly override the default with -t streamable-http
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
Download binary: Download the latest release of mcp-grafana
from the releases page and place it in your $PATH
.
Build from source: If you have a Go toolchain installed you can also build and install it from source, using the GOBIN
environment variable to specify the directory where the binary should be installed. This should also be in your PATH
.
GOBIN="$HOME/go/bin" go install github.com/grafana/mcp-grafana/cmd/mcp-grafana@latest
Add the server configuration to your client configuration file. For example, for Claude Desktop:
If using the binary:
{
"mcpServers": {
"grafana": {
"command": "mcp-grafana",
"args": [],
"env": {
"GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",
"GRAFANA_API_KEY": "<your service account token>"
}
}
}
}
Note: if you see
Error: spawn mcp-grafana ENOENT
in Claude Desktop, you need to specify the full path tomcp-grafana
.
If 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>"
}
}
}
}
Note: The
-t stdio
argument is essential here because it overrides the default SSE mode in the Docker image.
Using VSCode with remote MCP server
If you're using VSCode and running the MCP server in SSE mode (which is the default when using the Docker image without overriding the transport), make sure your .vscode/settings.json
includes the following:
"mcp": {
"servers": {
"grafana": {
"type": "sse",
"url": "http://localhost:8000/sse"
}
}
}
Debug Mode
You can enable debug mode for the Grafana transport by adding the -debug
flag to the command. This will provide detailed logging of HTTP requests and responses between the MCP server and the Grafana API, which can be helpful for troubleshooting.
To use debug mode with the Claude Desktop configuration, update your config as follows:
If using the binary:
{
"mcpServers": {
"grafana": {
"command": "mcp-grafana",
"args": ["-debug"],
"env": {
"GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",
"GRAFANA_API_KEY": "<your service account token>"
}
}
}
}
If using Docker:
{
"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 ConfigurationNote: As with the standard configuration, the
-t stdio
argument is required to override the default SSE mode in the Docker image.
If your Grafana instance is behind mTLS or requires custom TLS certificates, you can configure the MCP server to use custom certificates. The server supports the following TLS configuration options:
--tls-cert-file
: Path to TLS certificate file for client authentication--tls-key-file
: Path to TLS private key file for client authentication--tls-ca-file
: Path to TLS CA certificate file for server verification--tls-skip-verify
: Skip TLS certificate verification (insecure, use only for testing)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>"
}
}
}
}
Example with Docker:
{
"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>"
}
}
}
}
The TLS configuration is applied to all HTTP clients used by the MCP server, including:
Direct CLI Usage Examples:
For testing with self-signed certificates:
./mcp-grafana --tls-skip-verify -debug
With client certificate authentication:
./mcp-grafana \
--tls-cert-file /path/to/client.crt \
--tls-key-file /path/to/client.key \
--tls-ca-file /path/to/ca.crt \
-debug
With custom CA certificate only:
./mcp-grafana --tls-ca-file /path/to/ca.crt
Programmatic Usage:
If you're using this library programmatically, you can also create TLS-enabled context functions:
// Using struct literals
tlsConfig := &mcpgrafana.TLSConfig{
CertFile: "/path/to/client.crt",
KeyFile: "/path/to/client.key",
CAFile: "/path/to/ca.crt",
}
grafanaConfig := mcpgrafana.GrafanaConfig{
Debug: true,
TLSConfig: tlsConfig,
}
contextFunc := mcpgrafana.ComposedStdioContextFunc(grafanaConfig)
// Or inline
grafanaConfig := mcpgrafana.GrafanaConfig{
Debug: true,
TLSConfig: &mcpgrafana.TLSConfig{
CertFile: "/path/to/client.crt",
KeyFile: "/path/to/client.key",
CAFile: "/path/to/ca.crt",
},
}
contextFunc := mcpgrafana.ComposedStdioContextFunc(grafanaConfig)
Troubleshooting Grafana Version Compatibility
If you encounter the following error when using datasource-related tools:
get datasource by uid : [GET /datasources/uid/{uid}][400] getDataSourceByUidBadRequest {"message":"id is invalid"}
This typically indicates that you are using a Grafana version earlier than 9.0. The /datasources/uid/{uid}
API endpoint was introduced in Grafana 9.0, and datasource operations will fail on earlier versions.
Solution: Upgrade your Grafana instance to version 9.0 or later to resolve this issue.
DevelopmentContributions are welcome! Please open an issue or submit a pull request if you have any suggestions or improvements.
This project is written in Go. Install Go following the instructions for your platform.
To run the server locally in STDIO mode (which is the default for local development), use:
make run
To run the server locally in SSE mode, use:
go run ./cmd/mcp-grafana --transport sse
You can also run the server using the SSE transport inside a custom built Docker image. Just like the published Docker image, this custom image's entrypoint defaults to SSE mode. To build the image, use:
make build-image
And to run the image in SSE mode (the default), use:
docker run -it --rm -p 8000:8000 mcp-grafana:latest
If you need to run it in STDIO mode instead, override the transport setting:
docker run -it --rm mcp-grafana:latest -t stdio
Testing
There are three types of tests available:
make test-unit
You can also run unit tests with:
make test
make test-integration
make test-cloud
Note: Cloud tests are automatically configured in CI. For local development, you'll need to set up your own Grafana Cloud instance and credentials.
More comprehensive integration tests will require a Grafana instance to be running locally on port 3000; you can start one with Docker Compose:
docker-compose up -d
The integration tests can be run with:
make test-all
If you're adding more tools, please add integration tests for them. The existing tests should be a good starting point.
LintingTo lint the code, run:
make lint
This includes a custom linter that checks for unescaped commas in jsonschema
struct tags. The commas in description
fields must be escaped with \\,
to prevent silent truncation. You can run just this linter with:
make lint-jsonschema
See the JSONSchema Linter documentation for more details.
LicenseThis project is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
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