Assistant MCP

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Connecting Claude Code to Grafana
• Setting up MCP for Grafana
• Configuring the Grafana MCP server
• Using Grafana tools in Cursor/VS Code

Example prompts

• “give my agent Grafana access”
• “let Claude see my metrics”
• “Cursor + Grafana”
• “/assistant-mcp”

Requirements

• A credential in GRAFANA_API_KEY

Workflow steps

3 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Get a service-account token: Grafana Cloud → Administration → Service Accounts → create with Viewer role (add Editor only if you need…
2. 2Wire ~/.claude/settings.json (or project-local .claude/settings.json)
3. 3Restart Claude Code, then verify

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 1ccacf2. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • go

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

  • grafana.com
  • github.com
  • spec.modelcontextprotocol.io

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names these keys or tokens, usually read from environment variables:

  • GRAFANA_API_KEY

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Assistant MCP loads about 1.2k tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.3k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 212 tokens; SKILL.md has 376 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~212

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.2k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~2.3k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from grafana/skills at commit 1ccacf2, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© grafana). 376 words, ~1,238 tokens.

name

assistant-mcp

description

Connect AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, OpenAI Codex) to Grafana Cloud via the `mcp-grafana` Model Context Protocol server. Installs the server with `go install`, generates a Grafana service-account token, wires `~/.claude/settings.json` or `~/.cursor/mcp.json` with the `command` + `env` block, runs `--disable-write` for safer read-only sessions, switches to SSE transport for team-shared / VS Code setups, and verifies with `/mcp` + a `list_datasources` round-trip. Use when connecting Claude Code to Grafana, setting up MCP for Grafana, configuring the Grafana MCP server, using Grafana tools in Cursor/VS Code, querying Grafana from an AI agent, sharing the MCP server across a team — even when the user says "give my agent Grafana access", "let Claude see my metrics", or "Cursor + Grafana" without saying "MCP".

license

Apache-2.0

# 1. Install the server
go install github.com/grafana/mcp-grafana/cmd/mcp-grafana@latest

# 2. Verify the binary
mcp-grafana --version
# If "command not found": ensure $GOPATH/bin (or $HOME/go/bin) is on PATH.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "mcp-grafana",
      "args": ["--disable-write"],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "https://myorg.grafana.net",
        "GRAFANA_API_KEY": "glsa_xxxx"
      }
    }
  }
}

© grafana, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 3 other files (references) in skills/grafana-cloud/assistant-mcp of grafana/skills.

• SKILL.md
• references/a2a.md
• references/sse-transport.md
• references/tools.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 1ccacf2