# Grafana MCP Server (slim)

> Grafana Labs' open-source MCP server for Grafana. It runs locally or self-hosted and gives agents dashboards, datasource queries (Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, Pyroscope and others), alerting, incidents and OnCall on a self-managed Grafana or Grafana Cloud.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grafana-mcp-server.md (~6,950 tokens) · this version ~1,780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grafana-mcp-server.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grafana-mcp-server
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

**BB · 74.5/100 · rank #69 of 842 · #1 in Observability & incidents · agent-ready · confidence high**


Assessment: Every tool carries typed inputs and read-only, destructive and idempotent annotations, and `--disable-write` cuts the default 79 tools to 62. Writes and a general `grafana_api_request` tool are on by default, the default tool list is about 107 KB, and usage statistics have been sent to Grafana Labs by default since 2.0.0.

## Facts

- Kind: MCP server · vendor: Grafana Labs · category: Observability & incidents · legal entity: Raintank Inc., d/b/a Grafana Labs · provenance 76/100
- Local only (stdio, SSE (legacy), Streamable HTTP): pypi `mcp-grafana`, oci `grafana/mcp-grafana`, go `github.com/grafana/mcp-grafana/v2`
- Auth: OAuth or key · pricing: Free · x402: no · licence: Apache-2.0
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- What is graded: The open-source server in grafana/mcp-grafana, version 2.0.2, which the owner runs. Grafana Labs also runs a separate hosted Grafana Cloud MCP server at https://mcp.grafana.com/mcp with OAuth 2.1, for Grafana Cloud only and counted towards Grafana Assistant usage
- Install: `uvx mcp-grafana` (PyPI wheel with the Go binary, Python 3.10 or later), Docker image `grafana/mcp-grafana` (SSE by default, pass `-t stdio`), release binaries, `go install github.com/grafana/mcp-grafana/v2/cmd/mcp-grafana@latest`, or the `grafana/grafana-mcp` Helm chart
- Transports: stdio (default), SSE and streamable HTTP on `localhost:8000`. Per-request credentials, organisation and URL headers work only over streamable HTTP since 2.0.0
- Tools: 79 by default in 22 categories, 62 with `--disable-write`, 119 with all 35 categories. Off by default are admin, agento11y, assistant, athena, clickhouse, cloudlogging, cloudwatch, elasticsearch, examples, graphite, quickwit, runpanelquery, snowflake
- Tool definitions: 106,672 bytes of JSON for the default 79, measured from `tools/list` on 2.0.2. Largest are `alerting_rules_write` (5.9 KB) and `update_dashboard` (5.3 KB)
- Credentials: `GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN` or `GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN_FILE`, or `GRAFANA_USERNAME` and `GRAFANA_PASSWORD`. `GRAFANA_API_KEY` is deprecated. `--server-auth-token` adds a bearer token callers must send on HTTP transports
- Restrictions: `--disable-write`, `--disable-query`, `--disable-<category>`, `--loki-enforced-matchers` (needs `--disable-api`), `--allowed-hosts` and `--allowed-origins` against DNS rebinding, cross-origin redirects refused by default since 1.6.3
- Requirements: Grafana 9.0 or later. Image rendering needs the Grafana Image Renderer. Incident, OnCall, Asserts and Assistant tools need those plugins or Grafana Cloud
- Usage statistics: On by default since 2.0.0. One POST to https://stats.grafana.org/mcp-grafana-usage-report every four hours and at exit, with tool names and call and error counts, version, OS, flag names and environment variable names. Off with `--usage-stats=disabled`, `GRAFANA_USAGE_STATS=disabled` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1`
- Observability: Prometheus `/metrics`, OpenTelemetry traces and logs through `OTEL_*` variables, `/healthz`, slow-request logging
- Releases: 1.0.0 on 28 July 2026, 2.0.0 tagged 1 October 2026 (move to the official MCP Go SDK, alerting tools split into read and write, Sift tools removed), 2.0.2 on 7 October 2026

- Scores: Reliability 91, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 81, Agent ergonomics 74, Security & auth 65, Payments & pricing 60, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 95, Transparency & trust 79 · negative events -3 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, Scored as local software, since the owner runs it over stdio, SSE or streamable HTTP. · Schema & documentation, All 79 default tools declare typed JSON Schema inputs with `additionalProperties` false, read from `tools/list` on 2.0.2. No tool declares a… · Agent ergonomics, 79 tools load by default in 2.0.2, about 107 KB of definitions as JSON, and 119 with every category on. · Security & auth, The server holds a Grafana service account token, which Grafana RBAC can scope by action and resource and which can be revoked. · Payments & pricing, Read with the self-hosted rule. · Maintenance & community, v2.0.2 tagged on 7 October 2026, one day before the check (30). · Transparency & trust, Apache-2.0 (30).
- Sources: 20, open questions: 7, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: observability.metrics, observability.logs, observability.traces, observability.incidents, work.oncall
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/grafana-mcp-server.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/grafana-mcp-server.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grafana-mcp-server from a page on grafana.com or one of its subdomains, or the README of github.com/grafana/mcp-grafana, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.

## Before you call it

1. Start with `--disable-write` unless the task needs writes, and add `--disable-api` to remove `grafana_api_request`
2. Pass `--enabled-tools` with only the categories needed. The default list loads 79 tools
3. Use `get_dashboard_summary` or `get_dashboard_property` with a JSONPath before `get_dashboard_by_uid`, which returns the whole dashboard JSON
4. Set `GRAFANA_USAGE_STATS=disabled` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` to stop the four-hourly usage report to stats.grafana.org
5. Use streamable HTTP, not SSE, when each caller needs its own token or organisation, and set `--server-auth-token` on any non-loopback address

## Connect

```bash
uvx mcp-grafana
```
Full config and headless snippets are in the full page. Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/grafana-mcp-server

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Datadog MCP Server | C | 56.6 | observability.metrics, observability.logs, observability.traces, observability.incidents | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/datadog-mcp.min.md |
| Honeycomb MCP | C | 58.3 | observability.traces, observability.metrics, observability.logs | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/honeycomb-mcp.min.md |
| Render MCP Server | B | 63.6 | observability.logs, observability.metrics | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/render-mcp-server.min.md |
| PagerDuty MCP Server | D | 48.4 | observability.incidents, work.oncall | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pagerduty-mcp.min.md |
| LaunchDarkly | B | 69.2 | observability.logs | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/launchdarkly.min.md |


## Panel reviews (0, desk reviews from public material, no calls made)