Use Grafana Assistant on-premise
Use Grafana Assistant on-premise by installing the Assistant app in your self-hosted Grafana deployment and connecting it to a Grafana Cloud stack. This article explains how it works, what you need before you start, and which features are available.
What you’ll achieve
Grafana Assistant on-premise keeps the Assistant experience inside your own Grafana deployment.
After setup, you can use Assistant to work with metrics, logs, traces, profiles, and databases, create and update dashboards, generate queries, and navigate Grafana resources from natural language prompts.
Understand how on-premise works
Grafana Assistant on-premise uses a hybrid deployment model.
The Assistant UI runs in your self-hosted Grafana deployment. The Assistant backend, usage limits, and billing stay in the Grafana Cloud stack that you connect during setup. If you run Grafana OSS or Grafana Enterprise, this is the supported way to use Assistant outside Grafana Cloud.
This also means the on-premise experience doesn’t include every Grafana Cloud feature. Assistant keeps the core chat and dashboarding workflows, but some backend-dependent features remain available only in Grafana Cloud.
Before you begin
Grafana Assistant on-premise needs access in both your self-hosted Grafana deployment and a Grafana Cloud stack.
- A Grafana Cloud stack with Assistant enabled
- A self-hosted Grafana deployment
- Organization administrator access in the self-hosted Grafana deployment
- Administrator access in the Grafana Cloud stack that will back the deployment
- The Grafana Assistant app available in the self-hosted Grafana deployment
The app name is Grafana Assistant. The plugin ID is grafana-assistant-app.
Connect your deployment
Grafana Assistant on-premise connects your self-hosted Grafana deployment to the Grafana Cloud stack that provides the backend services.
- Enable Assistant in the Grafana Cloud stack that will back the deployment.
- In the self-hosted Grafana deployment, install the Grafana Assistant app.
- Sign in to the self-hosted Grafana deployment as an organization administrator.
- Open Administration > Plugins and data > Plugins and select Grafana Assistant.
- Open Connection.
- Select Start connection and complete the authorization flow in Grafana Cloud.
After the connection succeeds, the page reloads and Assistant becomes available in the self-hosted Grafana UI.
If you prefer to configure the connection manually, enter the following values from the Grafana Cloud stack in Connection:
- Backend URL
- Instance ID
- Access Token
Note
When you use Start connection, Grafana sends your Grafana URL, including internal hostnames, to Grafana Cloud so the two deployments can be paired.
For the complete setup flow, refer to Get started with Grafana Assistant.
Review available features
Grafana Assistant on-premise keeps the main chat workflows available and hides features that depend on the full Grafana Cloud backend.
Available on-premise:
- Chat and prompt-based assistance
- Dashboard creation and editing
- Query generation and explanation
- Navigation across Grafana resources
- Rules, quickstarts, and skills
Not available on-premise:
- Assistant investigations and related investigation memory features
- Infrastructure memory
- MCP server management and Grafana Cloud MCP connections
- CLI auth tokens
- SQL table discovery
- Automations and sandbox settings
- Anonymous access to the Assistant app
Manage access and usage
Grafana Assistant on-premise uses Grafana RBAC in the Grafana deployment where the plugin runs.
Use plugins.app:access scoped to plugins:id:grafana-assistant-app to control who can open Assistant in the self-hosted Grafana deployment. Assistant-specific roles such as Assistant User and Assistant Admin also apply there. Permissions alone don’t enable features that aren’t available on-premise.
Usage and limits are tied to the connected Grafana Cloud stack. If you need to review permissions, usage, or pricing, refer to the related articles:
