SKILL.md

Grafana Dashboard Authoring

Name: dashboarding
Author: grafana

Dashboards are JSON documents stored in Grafana. Every dashboard has panels, variables, time

range, and refresh settings. Understanding the JSON schema lets you programmatically create and

modify dashboards via the API or Grafana Assistant tools.

Dashboard JSON structure

{

  "title": "My Dashboard",

  "uid": "my-dashboard-v1",

  "tags": ["service", "production"],

  "time": { "from": "now-1h", "to": "now" },

  "refresh": "30s",

  "timezone": "browser",

  "schemaVersion": 41,

  "templating": { "list": [] },

  "annotations": { "list": [] },

  "panels": []

}

Key fields:

uid - stable identifier used in URLs and API calls; keep it short and meaningful

schemaVersion - use 41 for Grafana 11+

time.from / to - supports relative (now-1h, now-7d) and absolute ISO timestamps

refresh - auto-refresh interval ("30s", "1m", "5m", "" for off)

Panel types and when to use them

Panel

Use case

Time series

Any metric over time; the default choice for counters, rates, gauges

Stat

Single current value with optional sparkline (e.g. uptime, current RPS)

Gauge

Percent or value against a min/max (e.g. disk usage %)

Bar gauge

Compare multiple values side by side (e.g. top 10 services by RPS)

Table

Multi-column data (e.g. alert list with labels)

Heatmap

Distribution over time (e.g. request duration histogram)

Logs

Loki log streams

Traces

Tempo trace search

Text

Markdown documentation panels

Candlestick

OHLC/financial data (or min/max/avg patterns)

Node graph

Service dependency graphs

Panel JSON structure

{

  "id": 1,

  "type": "timeseries",

  "title": "Request Rate",

  "gridPos": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 12, "h": 8 },

  "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "${datasource}" },

  "targets": [

    {

      "expr": "sum(rate(http_requests_total{job=\"$job\"}[5m])) by (status_code)",

      "legendFormat": "{{status_code}}",

      "refId": "A"

    }

  ],

  "fieldConfig": {

    "defaults": {

      "unit": "reqps",

      "thresholds": {

        "mode": "absolute",

        "steps": [

          { "color": "green", "value": null },

          { "color": "yellow", "value": 1000 },

          { "color": "red", "value": 5000 }

        ]

      }

    },

    "overrides": []

  },

  "options": {

    "legend": { "calcs": ["mean", "max", "last"], "displayMode": "table", "placement": "bottom" },

    "tooltip": { "mode": "multi", "sort": "desc" }

  }

}

**gridPos:** The dashboard uses a 24-column grid. Common widths: full-width=24, half=12, third=8, quarter=6. Height in grid units (1 unit ≈ 30px).

Useful unit identifiers

# Rates

"reqps"      -- requests per second

"ops"        -- operations per second

"Bps"        -- bytes per second

"percentunit" -- 0.0-1.0 as percentage

# Storage

"bytes"      -- bytes (auto-scales to KB/MB/GB)

"decbytes"   -- decimal bytes (1 KB = 1000 B)

# Time

"ms"         -- milliseconds

"s"          -- seconds

"dtdurationms" -- duration in ms (shows as "1h 2m 3s")

# Counts

"short"      -- compact number (1.2k, 3.4M)

"none"       -- raw number

Full list: Panel > Field > Unit dropdown in Grafana UI, or the units reference.

Template variables

Variables make dashboards reusable across environments and services.

Query variable (populates from metric labels):

{

  "name": "job",

  "type": "query",

  "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },

  "query": { "query": "label_values(up, job)", "refId": "A" },

  "refresh": 2,

  "includeAll": true,

  "multi": true,

  "label": "Service"

}

Constant variable:

{

  "name": "cluster",

  "type": "constant",

  "query": "production",

  "label": "Cluster"

}

Datasource variable (switch data sources without editing queries):

{

  "name": "datasource",

  "type": "datasource",

  "pluginId": "prometheus",

  "includeAll": false,

  "label": "Prometheus"

}

Use variables in queries:

# Reference a variable in a PromQL query

rate(http_requests_total{job=~"$job"}[5m])

# Multi-value variable uses regex OR automatically

# When $job = ["api", "worker"], it becomes job=~"api|worker"

Chain variables (second variable filters based on first):

{

  "name": "pod",

  "query": "label_values(kube_pod_info{namespace=\"$namespace\"}, pod)"

}

Transformations

Transformations run client-side after data is fetched, reshaping results without changing queries.

Common transformations:

"transformations": [

  {

    "id": "merge",

    "options": {}

  },

  {

    "id": "organize",

    "options": {

      "renameByName": { "Value #A": "Request Rate", "Value #B": "Error Rate" },

      "excludeByName": { "Time": true }

    }

  },

  {

    "id": "calculateField",

    "options": {

      "alias": "Error %",

      "mode": "reduceRow",

      "reduce": { "reducer": "last" },

      "binary": {

        "left": "errors",

        "right": "total",

        "operator": "/"

      }

    }

  },

  {

    "id": "filterByValue",

    "options": {

      "filters": [{ "fieldName": "Error %", "config": { "id": "greater", "options": { "value": 0.01 } } }],

      "type": "include",

      "match": "any"

    }

  }

]

Key transformation IDs: merge, organize, rename, calculateField, filterByValue,

groupBy, sortBy, limit, labelsToFields, seriesToRows, partitionByValues.

Dashboard linking

Panel link (click a panel to go somewhere):

"links": [

  {

    "title": "Go to details",

    "url": "/d/details-dashboard?var-service=${__field.labels.service}",

    "targetBlank": false

  }

]

Dashboard link (top-right corner links):

"links": [

  {

    "title": "Runbook",

    "url": "https://wiki.example.com/runbook/${job}",

    "icon": "external link",

    "targetBlank": true,

    "type": "link"

  }

]

Built-in variables for links:

${__value.raw} - current data point value

${__field.labels.job} - label value from current series

${__url.params} - current URL query parameters (pass-through)

${__from} / ${__to} - current time range as Unix ms

Annotations

Show events overlaid on time series panels (deployments, incidents, etc.).

Query annotation from Loki:

{

  "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },

  "expr": "{job=\"deployments\"} |= \"deployed\"",

  "name": "Deployments",

  "iconColor": "blue",

  "titleFormat": "{{service}} deployed",

  "textFormat": "{{version}} by {{author}}"

}

Query annotation from Prometheus:

{

  "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },

  "expr": "changes(kube_deployment_status_observed_generation{namespace=\"production\"}[5m]) > 0",

  "step": "60s",

  "name": "Deployments",

  "iconColor": "blue",

  "titleFormat": "Deploy: {{deployment}}"

}

Dashboard via API

# Create or update a dashboard

curl -s -X POST \

  -H "Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>" \

  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \

  "https://myorg.grafana.net/api/dashboards/db" \

  -d '{

    "dashboard": { <dashboard JSON> },

    "folderUid": "my-folder",

    "overwrite": true,

    "message": "Updated via API"

  }'

# Get a dashboard by UID

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>" \

  "https://myorg.grafana.net/api/dashboards/uid/my-dashboard-v1" | jq '.dashboard'

# Search dashboards

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>" \

  "https://myorg.grafana.net/api/search?query=kubernetes&#x26;type=dash-db" | \

  jq '.[] | {uid, title, folderTitle}'

# Create a folder

curl -s -X POST \

  -H "Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>" \

  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \

  "https://myorg.grafana.net/api/folders" \

  -d '{"uid": "platform-team", "title": "Platform Team"}'