grafana mcp server

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--rm",
        "-i",
        "-e", "GRAFANA_URL=https://your-grafana-instance.com",
        "-e", "GRAFANA_TOKEN=your-api-token",
        "registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Environment Variables

The server requires the following environment variables:

• GRAFANA_URL (required): The base URL of your Grafana instance
• GRAFANA_TOKEN (required): API key or service account token for authentication

Transport Options

The server supports multiple transport modes:

stdio (default): Standard input/output communication

docker run -i \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=https://your-grafana.com \
  -e GRAFANA_TOKEN=your-token \
  registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp \
  --transport stdio

SSE: Server-Sent Events for web-based clients

docker run -p 8000:8000 \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=https://your-grafana.com \
  -e GRAFANA_TOKEN=your-token \
  registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp \
  --transport sse \
  --address localhost:8000

streamable-http: HTTP streaming for compatibility

docker run -p 8000:8000 \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=https://your-grafana.com \
  -e GRAFANA_TOKEN=your-token \
  registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp \
  --transport streamable-http \
  --address localhost:8000

Tool Configuration

Control which tool categories are enabled:

Enable specific tools:

docker run -i \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=https://your-grafana.com \
  -e GRAFANA_TOKEN=your-token \
  registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp \
  --enabled-tools search,datasource,prometheus

Disable specific tools:

docker run -i \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=https://your-grafana.com \
  -e GRAFANA_TOKEN=your-token \
  registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp \
  --disable-write \
  --disable-admin

Read-Only Mode

For safe, read-only access to your Grafana instance:

docker run -i \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=https://your-grafana.com \
  -e GRAFANA_TOKEN=your-token \
  registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp \
  --disable-write

This prevents any create, update, or delete operations.

Debug Mode

Enable detailed HTTP request/response logging:

docker run -i \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=https://your-grafana.com \
  -e GRAFANA_TOKEN=your-token \
  registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp \
  --debug

Available Tool Categories

• search: Dashboard and resource search
• datasource: Datasource management and queries
• prometheus: Prometheus metric queries and metadata
• loki: Loki log queries and metadata
• alerting: Alert rules and contact points
• dashboard: Dashboard operations
• incident: Incident management
• oncall: OnCall schedule and user management
• sift: Sift investigation and analysis
• asserts: Asserts integration
• pyroscope: Pyroscope profiling
• navigation: Navigation tools
• admin: Administrative operations (disabled by default)

Security Best Practices

1. Use Service Accounts: Create dedicated service accounts with minimal required permissions
2. Read-Only When Possible: Use --disable-write for queries and monitoring
3. Network Isolation: Run in isolated networks when accessing internal Grafana instances
4. Token Management: Store tokens securely using secrets management
5. Audit Logging: Enable debug mode in development, monitor in production

Example Use Cases

Dashboard Analysis

Query: "What panels are in the 'System Overview' dashboard?"
Server retrieves dashboard by name and extracts panel information

Metric Queries

Query: "Show me CPU usage for the last hour"
Server executes Prometheus queries and returns metrics

Alert Investigation

Query: "Are there any firing alerts?"
Server checks alert rules and returns active alerts

Incident Management

Query: "Create a new incident for the database outage"
Server creates incident with appropriate severity and details

Additional Resources

• Grafana MCP Server GitHub
• Grafana API Documentation
• Model Context Protocol

Non-hardened images vs Ghost hardened images

Key differences

Why no shell or package manager?

Ghost hardened images prioritize security through minimalism:

• Reduced attack surface: Fewer binaries mean fewer potential vulnerabilities
• Immutable infrastructure: Runtime containers shouldn't be modified after deployment
• Compliance ready: Meets strict security requirements for regulated environments

The hardened images intended for runtime don't contain a shell nor any tools for debugging. Common debugging methods for applications built with Ghost hardened images include:

• Docker Debug to attach to containers
• Docker's Image Mount feature to mount debugging tools
• Ecosystem-specific debugging approaches

Docker Debug provides a shell, common debugging tools, and lets you install other tools in an ephemeral, writable layer that only exists during the debugging session.

For example, you can use Docker Debug:

docker debug <container-name>

or mount debugging tools with the Image Mount feature:

docker run --rm -it --pid container:my-grafana-mcp \
  --mount=type=image,source=registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/busybox,destination=/dbg,ro \
  registry.ghost-prod.alphabravo.io/ghost-base/grafana-mcp:<tag> /dbg/bin/sh

Image variants

Ghost hardened images come in different variants depending on their intended use.

Runtime variants are designed to run your application in production. These images are intended to be used either directly or as the FROM image in the final stage of a multi-stage build. These images typically:

• Run as the nonroot user
• Do not include a shell or a package manager
• Contain only the minimal set of libraries needed to run the app

Build-time variants typically include dev in the variant name and are intended for use in the first stage of a multi-stage Dockerfile. These images typically:

• Run as the root user
• Include a shell and package manager
• Are used to build or compile applications

FIPS variants

FIPS variants include fips in the variant name and tag. They come in both runtime and build-time variants. These variants use cryptographic modules that have been validated under FIPS 140, a U.S. government standard for secure cryptographic operations.

For example, usage of MD5 fails in FIPS variants. To verify FIPS compliance, check the cryptographic module version in use by your Argo CD instance.

Migrate to a Ghost hardened image

To migrate your application to a Ghost hardened image, you must update your Dockerfile. At minimum, you must update the base image in your existing Dockerfile to a Ghost hardened image. This and a few other common changes are listed in the following table of migration notes:

The following steps outline the general migration process.

1. Find hardened images for your app.

   A hardened image may have several variants. Inspect the image tags and find the image variant that meets your needs.

2. Update the base image in your Dockerfile.

   Update the base image in your application's Dockerfile to the hardened image you found in the previous step. For framework images, this is typically going to be an image tagged as dev because it has the tools needed to install packages and dependencies.

3. For multi-stage Dockerfiles, update the runtime image in your Dockerfile.

   To ensure that your final image is as minimal as possible, you should use a multi-stage build. All stages in your Dockerfile should use a hardened image. While intermediary stages will typically use images tagged as dev, your final runtime stage should use a non-dev image variant.

4. Install additional packages

   Ghost hardened images contain minimal packages in order to reduce the potential attack surface. You may need to install additional packages in your Dockerfile. Inspect the image variants to identify which packages are already installed.

   Only images tagged as dev typically have package managers. You should use a multi-stage Dockerfile to install the packages. Install the packages in the build stage that uses a dev image. Then, if needed, copy any necessary artifacts to the runtime stage that uses a non-dev image.

   For Alpine-based images, you can use apk to install packages. For Debian-based images, you can use apt-get to install packages.

Troubleshoot migration

General debugging

The hardened images intended for runtime don't contain a shell nor any tools for debugging. The recommended method for debugging applications built with Ghost hardened images is to use Docker Debug to attach to these containers. Docker Debug provides a shell, common debugging tools, and lets you install other tools in an ephemeral, writable layer that only exists during the debugging session.

Permissions

By default image variants intended for runtime, run as the nonroot user. Ensure that necessary files and directories are accessible to the nonroot user. You may need to copy files to different directories or change permissions so your application running as the nonroot user can access them.

Privileged ports

Non-dev hardened images run as a nonroot user by default. As a result, applications in these images can't bind to privileged ports (below 1024) when running in Kubernetes or in Docker Engine versions older than 20.10.

No shell

By default, image variants intended for runtime don't contain a shell. Use dev images in build stages to run shell commands and then copy any necessary artifacts into the runtime stage. In addition, use Docker Debug to debug containers with no shell.

Entry point

Ghost hardened images may have different entry points than images such as Docker Official Images. Use docker inspect to inspect entry points for Ghost hardened images and update your Dockerfile if necessary.