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.

HTTP API

Folder HTTP API

Enterprise Open source

Folder API

Identifier (id) vs unique identifier (uid)

The identifier (id) of a folder is an auto-incrementing numeric value and is only unique per Grafana install.

The unique identifier (uid) of a folder can be used for uniquely identify folders between multiple Grafana installs. It’s automatically generated if not provided when creating a folder. The uid allows having consistent URLs for accessing folders and when syncing folders between multiple Grafana installs. This means that changing the title of a folder will not break any bookmarked links to that folder.

The uid can have a maximum length of 40 characters.

A note about the General folder

The General folder (id=0) is special and is not part of the Folder API which means that you cannot use this API for retrieving information about the General folder.

Get all folders

GET /api/folders

Returns all folders that the authenticated user has permission to view. You can control the maximum number of folders returned through the limit query parameter, the default is 1000. You can also pass the page query parameter for fetching folders from a page other than the first one.

Example Request:

GET /api/folders?limit=10 HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer eyJrIjoiT0tTcG1pUlY2RnVKZTFVaDFsNFZXdE9ZWmNrMkZYbk

Example Response:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

[
  {
    "id":1,
    "uid": "nErXDvCkzz",
    "title": "Department ABC"
  },
  {
    "id":2,
    "uid": "k3S1cklGk",
    "title": "Department RND"
  }
]

Get folder by uid

GET /api/folders/:uid

Will return the folder given the folder uid.

Example Request:

GET /api/folders/nErXDvCkzzh HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer eyJrIjoiT0tTcG1pUlY2RnVKZTFVaDFsNFZXdE9ZWmNrMkZYbk

Example Response:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id":1,
  "uid": "nErXDvCkzz",
  "title": "Department ABC",
  "url": "/dashboards/f/nErXDvCkzz/department-abc",
  "hasAcl": false,
  "canSave": true,
  "canEdit": true,
  "canAdmin": true,
  "createdBy": "admin",
  "created": "2018-01-31T17:43:12+01:00",
  "updatedBy": "admin",
  "updated": "2018-01-31T17:43:12+01:00",
  "version": 1
}

Status Codes:

200 – Found
401 – Unauthorized
403 – Access Denied
404 – Folder not found

Create folder

POST /api/folders

Creates a new folder.

Example Request:

POST /api/folders HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer eyJrIjoiT0tTcG1pUlY2RnVKZTFVaDFsNFZXdE9ZWmNrMkZYbk

{
  "uid": "nErXDvCkzz",
  "title": "Department ABC"
}

JSON Body schema:

uid – Optional unique identifier.
title – The title of the folder.

Example Response:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id":1,
  "uid": "nErXDvCkzz",
  "title": "Department ABC",
  "url": "/dashboards/f/nErXDvCkzz/department-abc",
  "hasAcl": false,
  "canSave": true,
  "canEdit": true,
  "canAdmin": true,
  "createdBy": "admin",
  "created": "2018-01-31T17:43:12+01:00",
  "updatedBy": "admin",
  "updated": "2018-01-31T17:43:12+01:00",
  "version": 1
}

Status Codes:

200 – Created
400 – Errors (invalid json, missing or invalid fields, etc)
401 – Unauthorized
403 – Access Denied
409 - Folder already exists

Update folder

PUT /api/folders/:uid

Updates an existing folder identified by uid.

Example Request:

PUT /api/folders/nErXDvCkzz HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer eyJrIjoiT0tTcG1pUlY2RnVKZTFVaDFsNFZXdE9ZWmNrMkZYbk

{
  "title":"Department DEF",
  "version": 1
}

JSON Body schema:

uid – Provide another unique identifier than stored to change the unique identifier.
title – The title of the folder.
version – Provide the current version to be able to update the folder. Not needed if overwrite=true.
overwrite – Set to true if you want to overwrite existing folder with newer version.

Example Response:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id":1,
  "uid": "nErXDvCkzz",
  "title": "Department DEF",
  "url": "/dashboards/f/nErXDvCkzz/department-def",
  "hasAcl": false,
  "canSave": true,
  "canEdit": true,
  "canAdmin": true,
  "createdBy": "admin",
  "created": "2018-01-31T17:43:12+01:00",
  "updatedBy": "admin",
  "updated": "2018-01-31T17:43:12+01:00",
  "version": 1
}

Status Codes:

200 – Updated
400 – Errors (invalid json, missing or invalid fields, etc)
401 – Unauthorized
403 – Access Denied
404 – Folder not found
412 – Precondition failed

The 412 status code is used for explaining that you cannot update the folder and why. There can be different reasons for this:

The folder has been changed by someone else, status=version-mismatch

The response body will have the following properties:

HTTP/1.1 412 Precondition Failed
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Content-Length: 97

{
  "message": "The folder has been changed by someone else",
  "status": "version-mismatch"
}

Delete folder

DELETE /api/folders/:uid

Deletes an existing folder identified by UID along with all dashboards (and their alerts) stored in the folder. This operation cannot be reverted.

If Grafana 8 Alerts are enabled, you can set an optional query parameter forceDeleteRules=false so that requests will fail with 400 (Bad Request) error if the folder contains any Grafana 8 Alerts. However, if this parameter is set to true then it will delete any Grafana 8 Alerts under this folder.

Example Request:

DELETE /api/folders/nErXDvCkzz HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer eyJrIjoiT0tTcG1pUlY2RnVKZTFVaDFsNFZXdE9ZWmNrMkZYbk

Example Response:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "message":"Folder deleted",
  "id": 2
}

Status Codes:

200 – Deleted
401 – Unauthorized
400 – Bad Request
403 – Access Denied
404 – Folder not found

Get folder by id

GET /api/folders/id/:id

Will return the folder identified by id.

Example Request:

GET /api/folders/id/1 HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer eyJrIjoiT0tTcG1pUlY2RnVKZTFVaDFsNFZXdE9ZWmNrMkZYbk

Example Response:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id":1,
  "uid": "nErXDvCkzz",
  "title": "Department ABC",
  "url": "/dashboards/f/nErXDvCkzz/department-abc",
  "hasAcl": false,
  "canSave": true,
  "canEdit": true,
  "canAdmin": true,
  "createdBy": "admin",
  "created": "2018-01-31T17:43:12+01:00",
  "updatedBy": "admin",
  "updated": "2018-01-31T17:43:12+01:00",
  "version": 1
}

Status Codes: