Grafana Dashboards

---
name: grafana-dashboards
description: "Create and manage production-ready Grafana dashboards for comprehensive system observability."
risk: critical
source: community
date_added: "2026-02-27"
---

# Grafana Dashboards

Create and manage production-ready Grafana dashboards for comprehensive system observability.

## Do not use this skill when

- The task is unrelated to grafana dashboards
- You need a different domain or tool outside this scope

## Instructions

- Clarify goals, constraints, and required inputs.
- Apply relevant best practices and validate outcomes.
- Provide actionable steps and verification.
- If detailed examples are required, open `resources/implementation-playbook.md`.

## Purpose

Design effective Grafana dashboards for monitoring applications, infrastructure, and business metrics.

## Use this skill when

- Visualize Prometheus metrics
- Create custom dashboards
- Implement SLO dashboards
- Monitor infrastructure
- Track business KPIs

## Dashboard Design Principles

### 1. Hierarchy of Information
```
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Critical Metrics (Big Numbers)     │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Key Trends (Time Series)           │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Detailed Metrics (Tables/Heatmaps) │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘
```

### 2. RED Method (Services)
- **Rate** - Requests per second
- **Errors** - Error rate
- **Duration** - Latency/response time

### 3. USE Method (Resources)
- **Utilization** - % time resource is busy
- **Saturation** - Queue length/wait time
- **Errors** - Error count

## Dashboard Structure

### API Monitoring Dashboard

The following JSON uses legacy graph panels and embedded alert fields. It illustrates query intent, not a portable current provisioning artifact. Export supported panel JSON from the target Grafana version; configure alert rules separately through its supported alerting interface. Test missing/zero traffic and verify datasource UIDs before deployment.

```json
{
  "dashboard": {
    "title": "API Monitoring",
    "tags": ["api", "production"],
    "timezone": "browser",
    "refresh": "30s",
    "panels": [
      {
        "title": "Request Rate",
        "type": "graph",
        "targets": [
          {
            "expr": "sum(rate(http_requests_total[5m])) by (service)",
            "legendFormat": "{{service}}"
          }
        ],
        "gridPos": {"x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 12, "h": 8}
      },
      {
        "title": "Error Rate %",
        "type": "graph",
        "targets": [
          {
            "expr": "(sum(rate(http_requests_total{status=~\"5..\"}[5m])) / sum(rate(http_requests_total[5m]))) * 100",
            "legendFormat": "Error Rate"
          }
        ],
        "alert": {
          "conditions": [
            {
              "evaluator": {"params": [5], "type": "gt"},
              "operator": {"type": "and"},
              "query": {"params": ["A", "5m", "now"]},
              "type": "query"
            }
          ]
        },
        "gridPos": {"x": 12, "y": 0, "w": 12, "h": 8}
      },
      {
        "title": "P95 Latency",
        "type": "graph",
        "targets": [
          {
            "expr": "histogram_quantile(0.95, sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m])) by (le, service))",
            "legendFormat": "{{service}}"
          }
        ],
        "gridPos": {"x": 0, "y": 8, "w": 24, "h": 8}
      }
    ]
  }
}
```

**Reference:** See [inline example](#api-monitoring-dashboard)

## Panel Types

### 1. Stat Panel (Single Value)
```json
{
  "type": "stat",
  "title": "Total Requests",
  "targets": [{
    "expr": "sum(http_requests_total)"
  }],
  "options": {
    "reduceOptions": {
      "values": false,
      "calcs": ["lastNotNull"]
    },
    "orientation": "auto",
    "textMode": "auto",
    "colorMode": "value"
  },
  "fieldConfig": {
    "defaults": {
      "thresholds": {
        "mode": "absolute",
        "steps": [
          {"value": 0, "color": "green"},
          {"value": 80, "color": "yellow"},
          {"value": 90, "color": "red"}
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}
```

### 2. Time Series Graph
```json
{
  "type": "graph",
  "title": "CPU Usage",
  "targets": [{
    "expr": "100 - (avg by (instance) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode=\"idle\"}[5m])) * 100)"
  }],
  "yaxes": [
    {"format": "percent", "max": 100, "min": 0},
    {"format": "short"}
  ]
}
```

### 3. Table Panel
```json
{
  "type": "table",
  "title": "Service Status",
  "targets": [{
    "expr": "up",
    "format": "table",
    "instant": true
  }],
  "transformations": [
    {
      "id": "organize",
      "options": {
        "excludeByName": {"Time": true},
        "indexByName": {},
        "renameByName": {
          "instance": "Instance",
          "job": "Service",
          "Value": "Status"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}
```

### 4. Heatmap
```json
{
  "type": "heatmap",
  "title": "Latency Heatmap",
  "targets": [{
    "expr": "sum(rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m])) by (le)",
    "format": "heatmap"
  }],
  "dataFormat": "tsbuckets",
  "yAxis": {
    "format": "s"
  }
}
```

## Variables

### Query Variables
```json
{
  "templating": {
    "list": [
      {
        "name": "namespace",
        "type": "query",
        "datasource": "Prometheus",
        "query": "label_values(kube_pod_info, namespace)",
        "refresh": 1,
        "multi": false
      },
      {
        "name": "service",
        "type": "query",
        "datasource": "Prometheus",
        "query": "label_values(kube_service_info{namespace=\"$namespace\"}, service)",
        "refresh": 1,
        "multi": true
      }
    ]
  }
}
```

### Use Variables in Queries
```
sum(rate(http_requests_total{namespace="$namespace", service=~"$service"}[5m]))
```

## Alerts in Dashboards

```json
{
  "alert": {
    "name": "High Error Rate",
    "conditions": [
      {
        "evaluator": {
          "params": [5],
          "type": "gt"
        },
        "operator": {"type": "and"},
        "query": {
          "params": ["A", "5m", "now"]
        },
        "reducer": {"type": "avg"},
        "type": "query"
      }
    ],
    "executionErrorState": "alerting",
    "for": "5m",
    "frequency": "1m",
    "message": "Error rate is above 5%",
    "noDataState": "no_data",
    "notifications": [
      {"uid": "slack-channel"}
    ]
  }
}
```

## Dashboard Provisioning

**dashboards.yml:**
```yaml
apiVersion: 1

providers:
  - name: 'default'
    orgId: 1
    folder: 'General'
    type: file
    disableDeletion: false
    updateIntervalSeconds: 10
    allowUiUpdates: true
    options:
      path: /etc/grafana/dashboards
```

## Common Dashboard Patterns

### Infrastructure Dashboard

**Key Panels:**
- CPU utilization per node
- Memory usage per node
- Disk I/O
- Network traffic
- Pod count by namespace
- Node status

**Reference:** See [inline example](#infrastructure-dashboard)

### Database Dashboard

**Key Panels:**
- Queries per second
- Connection pool usage
- Query latency (P50, P95, P99)
- Active connections
- Database size
- Replication lag
- Slow queries

**Reference:** See [inline example](#database-dashboard)

### Application Dashboard

**Key Panels:**
- Request rate
- Error rate
- Response time (percentiles)
- Active users/sessions
- Cache hit rate
- Queue length

## Best Practices

1. **Start with templates** (Grafana community dashboards)
2. **Use consistent naming** for panels and variables
3. **Group related metrics** in rows
4. **Set appropriate time ranges** (default: Last 6 hours)
5. **Use variables** for flexibility
6. **Add panel descriptions** for context
7. **Configure units** correctly
8. **Set meaningful thresholds** for colors
9. **Use consistent colors** across dashboards
10. **Test with different time ranges**

## Dashboard as Code

### Terraform Provisioning

```hcl
resource "grafana_dashboard" "api_monitoring" {
  config_json = file("${path.module}/dashboards/api-monitoring.json")
  folder      = grafana_folder.monitoring.id
}

resource "grafana_folder" "monitoring" {
  title = "Production Monitoring"
}
```

### Ansible Provisioning

```yaml
- name: Deploy Grafana dashboards
  copy:
    src: "{{ item }}"
    dest: /etc/grafana/dashboards/
  with_fileglob:
    - "dashboards/*.json"
  notify: restart grafana
```

## Reference Files

- [inline example](#api-monitoring-dashboard) - API monitoring dashboard
- [inline example](#infrastructure-dashboard) - Infrastructure dashboard
- [inline example](#database-dashboard) - Database monitoring dashboard
- `references/dashboard-design.md` - Dashboard design guide

## Related Skills

- `prometheus-configuration` - For metric collection
- `slo-implementation` - For SLO dashboards

## Limitations
- Use this skill only when the task clearly matches the scope described above.
- Do not treat the output as a substitute for environment-specific validation, testing, or expert review.
- Stop and ask for clarification if required inputs, permissions, safety boundaries, or success criteria are missing.