Dashboarding

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Scripting dashboard creation
• Writing the dashboard JSON for a new service
• Adding a $job dropdown variable
• Computing an Error % column with a transformation

Example prompts

• “Error %”
• “create a dashboard for this metric”
• “add a service dropdown”
• “/dashboarding”

Workflow steps

3 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

1. 1Push a new dashboard via the API + verify
2. 2Add a $job template variable to an existing dashboard
3. 3Compute an "Error %" column with a transformation

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:

  • curl
  • jq

  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

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

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

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

Context cost

Dashboarding loads about 1.4k tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.6k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 246 tokens; SKILL.md has 128 words of instructions outside code blocks.

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

~246

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

~1.4k

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

~2.6k

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). 128 words, ~1,388 tokens.

name

dashboarding

description

Build, modify, and ship Grafana dashboards as JSON via the HTTP API — panel types (timeseries / stat / gauge / table / heatmap / logs / traces / node-graph), `gridPos` 24-column layout, units, thresholds, template + datasource + chained variables, transformations (`organize` / `calculateField` / `filterByValue`), panel + dashboard links with `${__field.labels.x}` / `${__from}`, and Loki/Prometheus annotations. Use when scripting dashboard creation, writing the dashboard JSON for a new service, adding a `$job` dropdown variable, computing an "Error %" column with a transformation, overlaying deploys as annotations, or pushing a dashboard via `POST /api/dashboards/db` — even when the user says "create a dashboard for this metric", "add a service dropdown", "show errors as percentage", "overlay our deploys", or "export the dashboard JSON" without naming the API or schema. After every API push, verify with the returned `version` plus a GET on the dashboard UID.

license

Apache-2.0

# 1. Build the payload — wrap the dashboard JSON, set folder, mark overwrite
cat > /tmp/dash.json <<'JSON'
{
  "dashboard": {
    "uid": "demo-svc-v1",
    "title": "Demo Service",
    "schemaVersion": 41,
    "tags": ["demo"],
    "time": { "from": "now-1h", "to": "now" },
    "templating": { "list": [] },
    "panels": [{
      "id": 1, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Request Rate",
      "gridPos": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 24, "h": 8 },
      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
      "targets": [{
        "expr": "sum(rate(http_requests_total[5m])) by (status_code)",
        "legendFormat": "{{status_code}}", "refId": "A"
      }],
      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps" }, "overrides": [] }
    }]
  },
  "folderUid": "",
  "overwrite": true,
  "message": "initial push"
}
JSON

# 2. Validate the JSON BEFORE you send it (catches trailing-comma typos)
jq empty /tmp/dash.json && echo "json ok"

# 3. POST
RESP=$(curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  "$GRAFANA/api/dashboards/db" -d @/tmp/dash.json)
echo "$RESP" | jq '{status, uid, url, version}'
# Expect: status="success", url="/d/demo-svc-v1/...", version=1 (incremented on each push)

# 4. Verify the round-trip — read it back and confirm one panel + the expected title
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "$GRAFANA/api/dashboards/uid/demo-svc-v1" \
  | jq '{title: .dashboard.title, panels: (.dashboard.panels | length)}'
# Expect: {"title":"Demo Service","panels":1}

# 5. Open the dashboard in a browser — confirm the panel renders with data.

# 1. Fetch existing dashboard
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "$GRAFANA/api/dashboards/uid/demo-svc-v1" > /tmp/dash.json

# 2. Edit templating.list — append:
#   { "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" }
#  (Use jq, an editor, or the Grafana UI — schema in references/json-schema.md.)

# 3. Update the panel expr to use the variable: rate(http_requests_total{job=~"$job"}[5m])

# 4. POST it back with overwrite: true. Verify the variable appears in the UI dropdown.

{
  "id": "calculateField",
  "options": {
    "alias": "Error %", "mode": "reduceRow",
    "reduce": { "reducer": "last" },
    "binary": { "left": "errors", "right": "total", "operator": "/" }
  }
}

# Get
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "$GRAFANA/api/dashboards/uid/<uid>" | jq '.dashboard'

# Search
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  "$GRAFANA/api/search?query=kubernetes&type=dash-db" | jq '.[] | {uid,title,folderTitle}'

# Create folder
curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" "$GRAFANA/api/folders" \
  -d '{"uid":"platform-team","title":"Platform Team"}'

© 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 1 other file (references) in skills/grafana-core/dashboarding of grafana/skills.

• SKILL.md
• references/json-schema.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 1ccacf2

Used in 1 other repository

We found 1 copy of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 1 other GitHub owner. This page covers the copy in grafana/skills, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

• hardisgroupcom/sfdx-hardis.claude/skills/dashboarding