Grafana MCP server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Grafana.

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

Quick Start

Requires uv. Add the following to your MCP client configuration (e.g. Claude Desktop, Cursor):

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

For Grafana Cloud, replace GRAFANA_URL with your instance URL (e.g. https://myinstance.grafana.net). See Usage for more installation options including Docker, binary, and Helm.

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

Run Panel Query

Note: Run panel query tools are disabled by default. To enable them, add runpanelquery to your --enabled-tools flag.

• Run panel query: Execute a dashboard panel's query with custom time ranges and variable overrides.

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, ClickHouse, CloudWatch, Elasticsearch.

Query Examples

Note: Query examples tools are disabled by default. To enable them, add examples to your --enabled-tools flag.

• Get query examples: Retrieve example queries for different datasource types to learn query syntax.

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.
• Query histogram percentiles: Calculate histogram percentile values (p50, p90, p95, p99) using histogram_quantile.

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.
• Query Loki patterns: Retrieve log patterns detected by Loki to identify common log structures and anomalies.

ClickHouse Querying

Note: ClickHouse tools are disabled by default. To enable them, add clickhouse to your --enabled-tools flag.

• List ClickHouse tables: List all tables in a ClickHouse database with row counts and sizes.
• Describe table schema: Get column names, types, and metadata for a ClickHouse table.
• Query ClickHouse: Execute SQL queries with Grafana macro and variable substitution support.

CloudWatch Querying

Note: CloudWatch tools are disabled by default. To enable them, add cloudwatch to your --enabled-tools flag.

• List CloudWatch namespaces: Discover available AWS CloudWatch namespaces.
• List CloudWatch metrics: List metrics available in a specific namespace.
• List CloudWatch dimensions: Get dimensions for filtering metric queries.
• Query CloudWatch: Execute CloudWatch metric queries with time range support.

Log Search

Note: Search logs tools are disabled by default. To enable them, add searchlogs to your --enabled-tools flag.

• Search logs: High-level log search across ClickHouse (OTel format) and Loki datasources.

Elasticsearch Querying

Note: Elasticsearch tools are disabled by default. To enable them, add elasticsearch to your --enabled-tools flag.

• Query Elasticsearch: Execute search queries against Elasticsearch datasources using either Lucene query syntax or Elasticsearch Query DSL. Supports filtering by time range and retrieving logs, metrics, or any indexed data. Returns documents with their index, ID, source fields, and optional relevance score.

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.
• Create and update alert rules: Create new alert rules or modify existing ones.
• Delete alert rules: Remove alert rules by UID.
• Manage alerting routing: View notification policies, contact points, and time intervals. 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.

Rendering

• Get panel or dashboard image: Render a Grafana dashboard panel or full dashboard as a PNG image. Returns the image as base64 encoded data for use in reports, alerts, or presentations. Supports customizing dimensions, time range, theme, scale, and dashboard variables.
  • Note: Requires the Grafana Image Renderer service to be installed and configured.

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
run_panel_query	RunPanelQuery*	Execute one or more dashboard panel queries	dashboards:read, datasources:query	dashboards:uid:*, datasources:uid:*
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	Datasources	Get a datasource by UID or name	datasources:read	datasources:uid:prometheus-uid
get_query_examples	Examples*	Get example queries for a datasource type	datasources:read	datasources:*
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
query_prometheus_histogram	Prometheus	Calculate histogram percentile values	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
query_loki_patterns	Loki	Query detected log patterns to identify common structures	datasources:query	datasources:uid:loki-uid
list_clickhouse_tables	ClickHouse*	List tables in a ClickHouse database	datasources:query	datasources:uid:*
describe_clickhouse_table	ClickHouse*	Get table schema with column types	datasources:query	datasources:uid:*
query_clickhouse	ClickHouse*	Execute SQL queries with macro substitution	datasources:query	datasources:uid:*
list_cloudwatch_namespaces	CloudWatch*	List available AWS CloudWatch namespaces	datasources:query	datasources:uid:*
list_cloudwatch_metrics	CloudWatch*	List metrics in a namespace	datasources:query	datasources:uid:*
list_cloudwatch_dimensions	CloudWatch*	List dimensions for a metric	datasources:query	datasources:uid:*
query_cloudwatch	CloudWatch*	Execute CloudWatch metric queries	datasources:query	datasources:uid:*
search_logs	SearchLogs*	Search logs across ClickHouse and Loki	datasources:query	datasources:uid:*
query_elasticsearch	Elasticsearch*	Query Elasticsearch using Lucene syntax or Query DSL	datasources:query	datasources:uid:elasticsearch-uid
alerting_manage_rules	Alerting	Manage alert rules (list, get, versions, create, update, delete)	alert.rules:read + alert.rules:write for mutations	folders:* or folders:uid:alerts-folder
alerting_manage_routing	Alerting	Manage notification policies, contact points, and time intervals	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 (standard or Graphite format)	annotations:write	annotations:*
update_annotation	Annotations	Update specific fields of an annotation (partial update)	annotations:write	annotations:*
get_annotation_tags	Annotations	List annotation tags with optional filtering	annotations:read	annotations:*
get_panel_image	Rendering	Render a dashboard panel or full dashboard as a PNG image	dashboards:read	dashboards:uid:abc123

* Disabled by default. Add category to --enabled-tools to enable.

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
• --log-level: Log level (debug, info, warn, error) - default: info

Observability:

• --metrics: Enable Prometheus metrics endpoint at /metrics
• --metrics-address: Separate address for metrics server (e.g., :9090). If empty, metrics are served on the main server

Session Management:

• --session-idle-timeout-minutes: Session idle timeout in minutes. Sessions with no activity for this duration are automatically reaped - default: 30. Set to 0 to disable session reaping. Only relevant for SSE and streamable-http transports.

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")
• --max-loki-log-limit: Maximum number of log lines returned per query_loki_logs call - default: 100. Note: Set this at least 1 below Loki's server-side max_entries_limit_per_query to allow truncation detection (the tool requests limit+1 internally to detect if more data exists).
• --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-elasticsearch: Disable elasticsearch 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
• --disable-rendering: Disable rendering tools (panel/dashboard image export)
• --disable-cloudwatch: Disable CloudWatch tools
• --disable-examples: Disable query examples tools
• --disable-clickhouse: Disable ClickHouse tools
• --disable-searchlogs: Disable search_logs tool
• --disable-runpanelquery: Disable run panel query 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:

• alerting_manage_rules (create, update, delete operations)

Annotation Tools:

• create_annotation
• update_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.

1. 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"
      }
    }
  }
}

Custom HTTP Headers

You can add arbitrary HTTP headers to all Grafana API requests using the GRAFANA_EXTRA_HEADERS environment variable. The value should be a JSON object mapping header names to values.

Example with custom headers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "mcp-grafana",
      "args": [],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "http://localhost:3000",
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your token>",
        "GRAFANA_EXTRA_HEADERS": "{\"X-Custom-Header\": \"custom-value\", \"X-Tenant-ID\": \"tenant-123\"}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Forwarding Headers from the Client (SSE/Streamable-HTTP Only)

When the MCP server runs behind a gateway or reverse proxy that handles SSO (e.g. an AWS ALB with OIDC), each user's session cookie must reach Grafana so it can associate the request with the authenticated user. The GRAFANA_FORWARD_HEADERS environment variable enables this by specifying a comma-separated allowlist of header names to copy from the incoming HTTP request to every outbound Grafana API request.

This only applies when using SSE (-t sse) or streamable-http (-t streamable-http) transports. It has no effect in stdio mode.

Example: forward the session cookie

{
  "env": {
    "GRAFANA_URL": "https://grafana.internal",
    "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<your token>",
    "GRAFANA_FORWARD_HEADERS": "Cookie"
  }
}

You can forward multiple headers by separating them with commas:

GRAFANA_FORWARD_HEADERS=Cookie,X-Session-Id

Forwarded headers are merged with any headers defined in GRAFANA_EXTRA_HEADERS. If a header name appears in both, the value from the incoming request takes precedence for that request.

2. You have several options to install mcp-grafana:

   • uvx (recommended): If you have uv installed, no extra setup is needed — uvx will automatically download and run the server:

     uvx 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:

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

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

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

     For HTTPS streamable HTTP mode with server TLS certificates:

     docker pull grafana/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> \
       grafana/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
     

3. Add the server configuration to your client configuration file. For example, for Claude Desktop:

   If using uvx:

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

   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",
        "grafana/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",
        "grafana/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",
        "grafana/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> \
  grafana/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.

Observability

The MCP server supports Prometheus metrics and OpenTelemetry distributed tracing, following the OTel MCP semantic conventions.

Metrics

When using the SSE or streamable HTTP transports, enable Prometheus metrics with the --metrics flag:

# Metrics served on the main server at /metrics
./mcp-grafana -t streamable-http --metrics

# Metrics served on a separate address
./mcp-grafana -t streamable-http --metrics --metrics-address :9090

Available Metrics:

Metric	Type	Description
mcp_server_operation_duration_seconds	Histogram	Duration of MCP operations (labels: mcp_method_name, gen_ai_tool_name, error_type, network_transport, mcp_protocol_version)
mcp_server_session_duration_seconds	Histogram	Duration of MCP client sessions (labels: network_transport, mcp_protocol_version)
http_server_request_duration_seconds	Histogram	Duration of HTTP server requests (from otelhttp)

Note: Metrics are only available when using SSE or streamable HTTP transports. They are not available with the stdio transport.

Tracing

Distributed tracing is configured via standard OTEL_* environment variables and works independently of the --metrics flag. When OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT is set, the server exports traces via OTLP/gRPC:

# Send traces to a local Tempo instance
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317 \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE=true \
./mcp-grafana -t streamable-http

# Send traces to Grafana Cloud with authentication
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://tempo-us-central1.grafana.net:443 \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="Authorization=Basic ..." \
./mcp-grafana -t streamable-http

Tool call spans follow semconv naming (tools/call <tool_name>) and include attributes like gen_ai.tool.name, mcp.method.name, and mcp.session.id. The server also supports W3C trace context propagation from the _meta field of tool call requests.

Docker example with metrics and tracing:

docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your token> \
  -e OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://tempo:4317 \
  -e OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE=true \
  grafana/mcp-grafana \
  -t streamable-http --metrics

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:

1. Unit Tests (no external dependencies required):

make test-unit

You can also run unit tests with:

make test

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

make test-integration

3. 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.