Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.

Reference Index

JSON Model

Enterprise Open source

Dashboard JSON

A dashboard in Grafana is represented by a JSON object, which stores metadata of its dashboard. Dashboard metadata includes dashboard properties, metadata from rows, panels, template variables, panel queries, etc.

To view the JSON of a dashboard, follow the steps mentioned below:

Go to a dashboard
Click on Manage dashboard menu on the top navigation bar
Select View JSON from the dropdown menu

JSON fields

When a user creates a new dashboard, a new dashboard JSON object is initialized with the following fields:

Note: In the following JSON, id is shown as null which is the default value assigned to it until a dashboard is saved. Once a dashboard is saved, an integer value is assigned to the id field.

{
  "id": null,
  "title": "New dashboard",
  "tags": [],
  "style": "dark",
  "timezone": "browser",
  "editable": true,
  "hideControls": false,
  "graphTooltip": 1,
  "rows": [],
  "time": {
    "from": "now-6h",
    "to": "now"
  },
  "timepicker": {
    "time_options": [],
    "refresh_intervals": []
  },
  "templating": {
    "list": []
  },
  "annotations": {
    "list": []
  },
  "schemaVersion": 7,
  "version": 0,
  "links": []
}

Each field in the dashboard JSON is explained below with its usage:

Name	Usage
id	unique dashboard id, an integer
title	current title of dashboard
tags	tags associated with dashboard, an array of strings
style	theme of dashboard, i.e. `dark` or `light`
timezone	timezone of dashboard, i.e. `utc` or `browser`
editable	whether a dashboard is editable or not
hideControls	whether row controls on the left in green are hidden or not
graphTooltip	0 for no shared crosshair or tooltip (default), 1 for shared crosshair, 2 for shared crosshair AND shared tooltip
rows	row metadata, see rows section for details
time	time range for dashboard, i.e. last 6 hours, last 7 days, etc
timepicker	timepicker metadata, see timepicker section for details
templating	templating metadata, see templating section for details
annotations	annotations metadata, see annotations section for details
schemaVersion	TODO
version	TODO
links	TODO

rows

rows field consists of an array of JSON object representing each row in a dashboard, such as shown below:

 "rows": [
    {
      "collapse": false,
      "editable": true,
      "height": "200px",
      "panels": [],
      "title": "New row"
    },
    {
      "collapse": true,
      "editable": true,
      "height": "300px",
      "panels": [],
      "title": "New row"
    }
  ]

Usage of the fields is explained below:

Name	Usage
collapse	whether row is collapsed or not
editable	whether a row is editable or not
height	height of the row in pixels
panels	panels metadata, see panels section for details
title	title of row

panels

Panels are the building blocks a dashboard. It consists of datasource queries, type of graphs, aliases, etc. Panel JSON consists of an array of JSON objects, each representing a different panel in a row. Most of the fields are common for all panels but some fields depends on the panel type. Following is an example of panel JSON representing a graph panel type:

"panels": [
        {
          "aliasColors": {},
          "bars": false,
          "datasource": null,
          "editable": true,
          "error": false,
          "fill": 0,
          "grid": {
            "leftLogBase": 1,
            "leftMax": null,
            "leftMin": null,
            "rightLogBase": 1,
            "rightMax": null,
            "rightMin": null,
            "threshold1": null,
            "threshold1Color": "rgba(216, 200, 27, 0.27)",
            "threshold2": null,
            "threshold2Color": "rgba(234, 112, 112, 0.22)"
          },
          "id": 1,
          "legend": {
            "avg": false,
            "current": false,
            "max": false,
            "min": false,
            "show": true,
            "total": false,
            "values": false
          },
          "lines": true,
          "linewidth": 1,
          "links": [],
          "nullPointMode": "connected",
          "percentage": false,
          "pointradius": 5,
          "points": false,
          "renderer": "flot",
          "seriesOverrides": [],
          "span": 4,
          "stack": false,
          "steppedLine": false,
          "targets": [
            {
              "aggregator": "max",
              "alias": "$tag_instance_id",
              "currentTagKey": "",
              "currentTagValue": "",
              "downsampleAggregator": "avg",
              "downsampleInterval": "",
              "errors": {},
              "metric": "memory.percent-used",
              "refId": "A",
              "shouldComputeRate": false,
              "tags": {
                "app": "$app",
                "env": "stage",
                "instance_id": "*"
              }
            }
          ],
          "timeFrom": null,
          "timeShift": null,
          "title": "Memory Utilization",
          "tooltip": {
            "shared": true,
            "value_type": "cumulative"
          },
          "type": "graph",
          "x-axis": true,
          "y-axis": true,
          "y_formats": [
            "percent",
            "short"
          ]
        },
        {
          "aliasColors": {},
          "bars": false,
          "datasource": null,
          "editable": true,
          "error": false,
          "fill": 0,
          "grid": {
            "leftLogBase": 1,
            "leftMax": null,
            "leftMin": null,
            "rightLogBase": 1,
            "rightMax": null,
            "rightMin": null,
            "threshold1": null,
            "threshold1Color": "rgba(216, 200, 27, 0.27)",
            "threshold2": null,
            "threshold2Color": "rgba(234, 112, 112, 0.22)"
          },
          "id": 2,
          "legend": {
            "avg": false,
            "current": false,
            "max": false,
            "min": false,
            "show": true,
            "total": false,
            "values": false
          },
          "lines": true,
          "linewidth": 1,
          "links": [],
          "nullPointMode": "connected",
          "percentage": false,
          "pointradius": 5,
          "points": false,
          "renderer": "flot",
          "seriesOverrides": [],
          "span": 4,
          "stack": false,
          "steppedLine": false,
          "targets": [
            {
              "aggregator": "avg",
              "alias": "$tag_instance_id",
              "currentTagKey": "",
              "currentTagValue": "",
              "downsampleAggregator": "avg",
              "downsampleInterval": "",
              "errors": {},
              "metric": "memory.percent-cached",
              "refId": "A",
              "shouldComputeRate": false,
              "tags": {
                "app": "$app",
                "env": "prod",
                "instance_id": "*"
              }
            }
          ],
          "timeFrom": null,
          "timeShift": null,
          "title": "Memory Cached",
          "tooltip": {
            "shared": true,
            "value_type": "cumulative"
          },
          "type": "graph",
          "x-axis": true,
          "y-axis": true,
          "y_formats": [
            "short",
            "short"
          ]
        },

Usage of each field is explained below:

Name	Usage
TODO	TODO

timepicker

Description: TODO

"timepicker": {
    "collapse": false,
    "enable": true,
    "notice": false,
    "now": true,
    "refresh_intervals": [
      "5s",
      "10s",
      "30s",
      "1m",
      "5m",
      "15m",
      "30m",
      "1h",
      "2h",
      "1d"
    ],
    "status": "Stable",
    "time_options": [
      "5m",
      "15m",
      "1h",
      "3h",
      "6h",
      "12h",
      "24h",
      "2d",
      "3d",
      "4d",
      "7d",
      "30d"
    ],
    "type": "timepicker"
  }

Usage of the fields is explained below:

Name	Usage
collapse	whether timepicker is collapsed or not
enable	whether timepicker is enabled or not
notice	TODO
now	TODO
refresh_intervals	TODO
status	TODO
time_options	TODO
type	TODO

templating

templating fields contains array of template variables with their saved values along with some other metadata, for example:

 "templating": {
    "enable": true,
    "list": [
      {
        "allFormat": "wildcard",
        "current": {
          "tags": [],
          "text": "prod",
          "value": "prod"
        },
        "datasource": null,
        "includeAll": true,
        "name": "env",
        "options": [
          {
            "selected": false,
            "text": "All",
            "value": "*"
          },
          {
            "selected": false,
            "text": "stage",
            "value": "stage"
          },
          {
            "selected": false,
            "text": "test",
            "value": "test"
          }
        ],
        "query": "tag_values(cpu.utilization.average,env)",
        "refresh": false,
        "refresh": false,
        "type": "query"
      },
      {
        "allFormat": "wildcard",
        "current": {
          "text": "apache",
          "value": "apache"
        },
        "datasource": null,
        "includeAll": false,
        "multi": false,
        "multiFormat": "glob",
        "name": "app",
        "options": [
          {
            "selected": true,
            "text": "tomcat",
            "value": "tomcat"
          },
          {
            "selected": false,
            "text": "cassandra",
            "value": "cassandra"
          }
        ],
        "query": "tag_values(cpu.utilization.average,app)",
        "refresh": false,
        "regex": "",
        "type": "query"
      }
    ]
  }

Usage of the above mentioned fields in the templating section is explained below:

Name	Usage
enable	whether templating is enabled or not
list	an array of objects representing, each representing one template variable
allFormat	format to use while fetching all values from datasource, eg: `wildcard`, `glob`, `regex`, `pipe`, etc.
current	shows current selected variable text/value on the dashboard
datasource	shows datasource for the variables
includeAll	whether all value option is available or not
multi	whether multiple values can be selected or not from variable value list
multiFormat	format to use while fetching timeseries from datasource
name	name of variable
options	array of variable text/value pairs available for selection on dashboard
query	datasource query used to fetch values for a variable
refresh	TODO
regex	TODO
type	type of variable, i.e. `custom`, `query` or `interval`