Grafana MCP server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Grafana.

This provides access to your Grafana instance and the surrounding ecosystem.

Requirements

Grafana version 9.0 or later is required for full functionality. Some features, particularly datasource-related operations, may not work correctly with earlier versions due to missing API endpoints.

Features

The 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.

Dashboards

Search for dashboards: Find dashboards by title or other metadata
Get dashboard by UID: Retrieve full dashboard details using its unique identifier. Warning: Large dashboards can consume significant context window space.
Get dashboard summary: Get a compact overview of a dashboard including title, panel count, panel types, variables, and metadata without the full JSON to minimize context window usage
Get dashboard property: Extract specific parts of a dashboard using JSONPath expressions (e.g., $.title, $.panels[*].title) to fetch only needed data and reduce context window consumption
Update or create a dashboard: Modify existing dashboards or create new ones. Warning: Requires full dashboard JSON which can consume large amounts of context window space.
Patch dashboard: Apply specific changes to a dashboard without requiring the full JSON, significantly reducing context window usage for targeted modifications
Get panel queries and datasource info: Get the title, query string, and datasource information (including UID and type, if available) from every panel in a dashboard

Context Window Management

The dashboard tools now include several strategies to manage context window usage effectively (issue #101):

Use get_dashboard_summary for dashboard overview and planning modifications
Use get_dashboard_property with JSONPath when you only need specific dashboard parts
Avoid get_dashboard_by_uid unless you specifically need the complete dashboard JSON

Datasources

List and fetch datasource information: View all configured datasources and retrieve detailed information about each.
- Supported datasource types: Prometheus, Loki.

Prometheus Querying

Query Prometheus: Execute PromQL queries (supports both instant and range metric queries) against Prometheus datasources.
Query Prometheus metadata: Retrieve metric metadata, metric names, label names, and label values from Prometheus datasources.

Loki Querying

Query Loki logs and metrics: Run both log queries and metric queries using LogQL against Loki datasources.
Query Loki metadata: Retrieve label names, label values, and stream statistics from Loki datasources.

Incidents

Search, create, and update incidents: Manage incidents in Grafana Incident, including searching, creating, and adding activities to incidents.

Sift Investigations

List Sift investigations: Retrieve a list of Sift investigations, with support for a limit parameter.
Get Sift investigation: Retrieve details of a specific Sift investigation by its UUID.
Get Sift analyses: Retrieve a specific analysis from a Sift investigation.
Find error patterns in logs: Detect elevated error patterns in Loki logs using Sift.
Find slow requests: Detect slow requests using Sift (Tempo).

Alerting

List and fetch alert rule information: View alert rules and their statuses (firing/normal/error/etc.) in Grafana. Supports both Grafana-managed rules and datasource-managed rules from Prometheus or Loki datasources.
List contact points: View configured notification contact points in Grafana. Supports both Grafana-managed contact points and receivers from external Alertmanager datasources (Prometheus Alertmanager, Mimir, Cortex).

Grafana OnCall

List and manage schedules: View and manage on-call schedules in Grafana OnCall.
Get shift details: Retrieve detailed information about specific on-call shifts.
Get current on-call users: See which users are currently on call for a schedule.
List teams and users: View all OnCall teams and users.
List alert groups: View and filter alert groups from Grafana OnCall by various criteria including state, integration, labels, and time range.
Get alert group details: Retrieve detailed information about a specific alert group by its ID.

Admin

Note: Admin tools are disabled by default. To enable them, include admin in your --enabled-tools flag.

List teams: View all configured teams in Grafana.
List Users: View all users in an organization in Grafana.
List all roles: List all Grafana roles, with an optional filter for delegatable roles.
Get role details: Get details for a specific Grafana role by UID.
List assignments for a role: List all users, teams, and service accounts assigned to a role.
List roles for users: List all roles assigned to one or more users.
List roles for teams: List all roles assigned to one or more teams.
List permissions for a resource: List all permissions defined for a specific resource (dashboard, datasource, folder, etc.).
Describe a Grafana resource: List available permissions and assignment capabilities for a resource type.

Navigation

Generate deeplinks: Create accurate deeplink URLs for Grafana resources instead of relying on LLM URL guessing.
- Dashboard links: Generate direct links to dashboards using their UID (e.g., http://localhost:3000/d/dashboard-uid)
- Panel links: Create links to specific panels within dashboards with viewPanel parameter (e.g., http://localhost:3000/d/dashboard-uid?viewPanel=5)
- Explore links: Generate links to Grafana Explore with pre-configured datasources (e.g., http://localhost:3000/explore?left={"datasource":"prometheus-uid"})
- Time range support: Add time range parameters to links (from=now-1h&to=now)
- Custom parameters: Include additional query parameters like dashboard variables or refresh intervals

Annotations

Get Annotations: Query annotations with filters. Supports time range, dashboard UID, tags, and match mode.
Create Annotation: Create a new annotation on a dashboard or panel.
Create Graphite Annotation: Create annotations using Graphite format (what, when, tags, data).
Update Annotation: Replace all fields of an existing annotation (full update).
Patch Annotation: Update only specific fields of an annotation (partial update).
Get Annotation Tags: List available annotation tags with optional filtering.

The 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, or to disable navigation deeplink generation, use --disable-navigation.

RBAC Permissions

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.

Tip: If you're not familiar with Grafana RBAC or you want a quicker, simpler setup instead of configuring many granular scopes, you can assign a built-in role such as Editor to the service account. The Editor role grants broad read/write access that will allow most MCP server operations; it is less granular (and therefore less restrictive) than manually-applied scopes, so use it only when convenience is more important than strict least-privilege access.

Note: Grafana Incident and Sift tools use basic Grafana roles instead of fine-grained RBAC permissions:

Viewer role: Required for read-only operations (list incidents, get investigations)
Editor role: Required for write operations (create incidents, modify investigations)

For more information about Grafana RBAC, see the official documentation.

RBAC Scopes

Scopes 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 datasources
- dashboards:* - Access to all dashboards
- folders:* - Access to all folders
- teams:* - Access to all teams
Limited access: Use specific UIDs or IDs to restrict access to individual resources
- datasources:uid:prometheus-uid - Access only to a specific Prometheus datasource
- dashboards: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)

Tools

Tool	Category	Description	Required RBAC Permissions	Required Scopes
`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`
`list_all_roles`	Admin	List all Grafana roles	`roles:read`	`roles:*`
`get_role_details`	Admin	Get details for a Grafana role	`roles:read`	`roles:uid:editor`
`get_role_assignments`	Admin	List assignments for a role	`roles:read`	`roles:uid:editor`
`list_user_roles`	Admin	List roles for users	`roles:read`	`global.users:id:123`
`list_team_roles`	Admin	List roles for teams	`roles:read`	`teams:id:7`
`get_resource_permissions`	Admin	List permissions for a resource	`permissions:read`	`dashboards:uid:abcd1234`
`get_resource_description`	Admin	Describe a Grafana resource type	`permissions:read`	`dashboards:*`
`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`
`get_dashboard_property`	Dashboard	Extract specific parts of a dashboard using JSONPath expressions	`dashboards:read`	`dashboards:uid:abc123`
`get_dashboard_summary`	Dashboard	Get a compact summary of a dashboard without full JSON	`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 (Grafana-managed and Alertmanager)	`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
`list_alert_groups`	OnCall	List alert groups from Grafana OnCall with filtering options	`grafana-oncall-app.alert-groups:read`	Plugin-specific scopes
`get_alert_group`	OnCall	Get a specific alert group from Grafana OnCall by its ID	`grafana-oncall-app.alert-groups: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
`generate_deeplink`	Navigation	Generate accurate deeplink URLs for Grafana resources	None (read-only URL generation)	N/A
`get_annotations`	Annotations	Fetch annotations with filters	`annotations:read`	`annotations:*` or `annotations:id:123`
`create_annotation`	Annotations	Create a new annotation on a dashboard or panel	`annotations:write`	`annotations:*`
`create_graphite_annotation`	Annotations	Create an annotation using Graphite format	`annotations:write`	`annotations:*`
`update_annotation`	Annotations	Replace all fields of an annotation (full update)	`annotations:write`	`annotations:*`
`patch_annotation`	Annotations	Update only specific fields of an annotation (partial update)	`annotations:write`	`annotations:*`
`get_annotation_tags`	Annotations	List annotation tags with optional filtering	`annotations:read`	`annotations:*`

CLI Flags Reference

The mcp-grafana binary supports various command-line flags for configuration:

Transport Options:

-t, --transport: Transport type (stdio, sse, or streamable-http) - default: stdio
--address: The host and port for SSE/streamable-http server - default: localhost:8000
--base-path: Base path for the SSE/streamable-http server
--endpoint-path: Endpoint path for the streamable-http server - default: /

Debug and Logging:

--debug: Enable debug mode for detailed HTTP request/response logging

Tool Configuration:

--enabled-tools: Comma-separated list of enabled categories - default: all categories except admin, to enable admin tools, add admin to the list (e.g., "search,datasource,...,admin")
--disable-search: Disable search tools
--disable-datasource: Disable datasource tools
--disable-incident: Disable incident tools
--disable-prometheus: Disable prometheus tools
--disable-write: Disable write tools (create/update operations)
--disable-loki: Disable loki tools
--disable-alerting: Disable alerting tools
--disable-dashboard: Disable dashboard tools
--disable-oncall: Disable oncall tools
--disable-asserts: Disable asserts tools
--disable-sift: Disable sift tools
--disable-admin: Disable admin tools
--disable-pyroscope: Disable pyroscope tools
--disable-navigation: Disable navigation tools

Read-Only Mode

The --disable-write flag provides a way to run the MCP server in read-only mode, preventing any write operations to your Grafana instance. This is useful for scenarios where you want to provide safe, read-only access such as:

Using service accounts with limited read-only permissions
Providing AI assistants with observability data without modification capabilities
Running in production environments where write access should be restricted
Testing and development scenarios where you want to prevent accidental modifications

When --disable-write is enabled, the following write operations are disabled:

Dashboard Tools:

update_dashboard

Folder Tools:

create_folder

Incident Tools:

create_incident
add_activity_to_incident

Alerting Tools:

create_alert_rule
update_alert_rule
delete_alert_rule

Annotation Tools:

create_annotation
create_graphite_annotation
update_annotation
patch_annotation

Sift Tools:

find_error_pattern_logs (creates investigations)
find_slow_requests (creates investigations)

All read operations remain available, allowing you to query dashboards, run PromQL/LogQL queries, list resources, and retrieve data.

Client TLS Configuration (for Grafana connections):

--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)

Server TLS Configuration (streamable-http transport only):

--server.tls-cert-file: Path to TLS certificate file for server HTTPS
--server.tls-key-file: Path to TLS private key file for server HTTPS

Usage

This MCP server works with both local Grafana instances and Grafana Cloud. For Grafana Cloud, use your instance URL (e.g., https://myinstance.grafana.net) instead of http://localhost:3000 in the configuration examples below.

If using service account token authentication, 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 service account documentation for details on creating service account tokens. Tip: If you're not comfortable configuring fine-grained RBAC scopes, a simpler (but less restrictive) option is to assign the built-in Editor role to the service account. This grants broad read/write access that covers most MCP server operations — use it when convenience outweighs strict least-privilege requirements.

Note: The environment variable GRAFANA_API_KEY is deprecated and will be removed in a future version. Please migrate to using GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN instead. The old variable name will continue to work for backward compatibility but will show deprecation warnings.

Multi-Organization Support

You can specify which organization to interact with using either:

Environment variable: Set GRAFANA_ORG_ID to the numeric organization ID
HTTP header: Set X-Grafana-Org-Id when using SSE or streamable HTTP transports (header takes precedence over environment variable - meaning you can set a default org as well).

When an organization ID is provided, the MCP server will set the X-Grafana-Org-Id header on all requests to Grafana, ensuring that operations are performed within the specified organization context.

Example with organization ID:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "mcp-grafana",
      "args": [],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",
        "GRAFANA_USERNAME": "<your username>",
        "GRAFANA_PASSWORD": "<your password>",
        "GRAFANA_ORG_ID": "2"
      }
    }
  }
}

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:

STDIO Mode: For stdio mode you must explicitly override the default with -t stdio and include the -i flag to keep stdin open:

docker pull mcp/grafana
# For local Grafana:
docker run --rm -i -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your service account token> mcp/grafana -t stdio
# For Grafana Cloud:
docker run --rm -i -e GRAFANA_URL=https://myinstance.grafana.net -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your service account token> mcp/grafana -t stdio

SSE Mode: In this mode, the server runs as an HTTP server that clients connect to. You must expose port 8000 using the -p flag:

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

Streamable HTTP Mode: In this mode, the server operates as an independent process that can handle multiple client connections. You must expose port 8000 using the -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_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your service account token> mcp/grafana -t streamable-http

For HTTPS streamable HTTP mode with server TLS certificates:

docker pull mcp/grafana
docker run --rm -p 8443:8443 \
  -v /path/to/certs:/certs:ro \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your service account token> \
  mcp/grafana \
  -t streamable-http \
  -addr :8443 \
  --server.tls-cert-file /certs/server.crt \
  --server.tls-key-file /certs/server.key

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
```

Deploy to Kubernetes using Helm: use the Helm chart from the Grafana helm-charts repository

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

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",  // Or "https://myinstance.grafana.net" for Grafana Cloud
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your service account token>",
        // If using username/password authentication
        "GRAFANA_USERNAME": "<your username>",
        "GRAFANA_PASSWORD": "<your password>",
        // Optional: specify organization ID for multi-org support
        "GRAFANA_ORG_ID": "1"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: if you see Error: spawn mcp-grafana ENOENT in Claude Desktop, you need to specify the full path to mcp-grafana.

If 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",  // Or "https://myinstance.grafana.net" for Grafana Cloud
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your service account token>",
        // If using username/password authentication
        "GRAFANA_USERNAME": "<your username>",
        "GRAFANA_PASSWORD": "<your password>",
        // Optional: specify organization ID for multi-org support
        "GRAFANA_ORG_ID": "1"
      }
    }
  }
}

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"
    }
  }
}

For HTTPS streamable HTTP mode with server TLS certificates:

"mcp": {
  "servers": {
    "grafana": {
      "type": "sse",
      "url": "https://localhost:8443/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",  // Or "https://myinstance.grafana.net" for Grafana Cloud
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your service account token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

If using Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--rm",
        "-i",
        "-e",
        "GRAFANA_URL",
        "-e",
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN",
        "mcp/grafana",
        "-t",
        "stdio",
        "-debug"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",  // Or "https://myinstance.grafana.net" for Grafana Cloud
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your service account token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: As with the standard configuration, the -t stdio argument is required to override the default SSE mode in the Docker image.

TLS Configuration

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_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<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_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN",
        "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_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your service account token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

The TLS configuration is applied to all HTTP clients used by the MCP server, including:

The main Grafana OpenAPI client
Prometheus datasource clients
Loki datasource clients
Incident management clients
Sift investigation clients
Alerting clients
Asserts clients

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)

Server TLS Configuration (Streamable HTTP Transport Only)

When using the streamable HTTP transport (-t streamable-http), you can configure the MCP server to serve HTTPS instead of HTTP. This is useful when you need to secure the connection between your MCP client and the server itself.

The server supports the following TLS configuration options for the streamable HTTP transport:

--server.tls-cert-file: Path to TLS certificate file for server HTTPS (required for TLS)
--server.tls-key-file: Path to TLS private key file for server HTTPS (required for TLS)

Note: These flags are completely separate from the client TLS flags documented above. The client TLS flags configure how the MCP server connects to Grafana, while these server TLS flags configure how clients connect to the MCP server when using streamable HTTP transport.

Example with HTTPS streamable HTTP server:

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

This would start the MCP server on HTTPS port 8443. Clients would then connect to https://localhost:8443/ instead of http://localhost:8000/.

Docker example with server TLS:

docker run --rm -p 8443:8443 \
  -v /path/to/certs:/certs:ro \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your service account token> \
  mcp/grafana \
  -t streamable-http \
  -addr :8443 \
  --server.tls-cert-file /certs/server.crt \
  --server.tls-key-file /certs/server.key

Health Check Endpoint

When using the SSE (-t sse) or streamable HTTP (-t streamable-http) transports, the MCP server exposes a health check endpoint at /healthz. This endpoint can be used by load balancers, monitoring systems, or orchestration platforms to verify that the server is running and accepting connections.

Endpoint: GET /healthz

Response:

Status Code: 200 OK
Body: ok

Example usage:

# For streamable HTTP or SSE transport on default port
curl http://localhost:8000/healthz

# With custom address
curl http://localhost:9090/healthz

Note: The health check endpoint is only available when using SSE or streamable HTTP transports. It is not available when using the stdio transport (-t stdio), as stdio does not expose an HTTP server.

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.

Development

Contributions 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:

Unit Tests (no external dependencies required):

make test-unit

You can also run unit tests with:

make test

Integration Tests (requires docker containers to be up and running):

make test-integration

Cloud Tests (requires cloud Grafana instance and credentials):

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.

Linting

To 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.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

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