---
title: "Working with pipelines | Grafana Labs"
description: "Creating and managing configuration pipelines"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

## Creating pipelines

There are two ways to create a pipeline. Start from a Grafana Cloud integration to get going quickly, or write your own configuration from scratch when you have specific requirements.

| Approach                      | Best for                                    |
|-------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|
| **Grafana Cloud integration** | Common use cases (Linux, MySQL, PostgreSQL) |
| **Custom configuration**      | Specific requirements, custom scrapes       |

## Pipeline operations

Once a pipeline exists, several operations are available. Deactivate a pipeline to temporarily stop collecting certain metrics, edit its content at any time, or view its history, which is invaluable for troubleshooting.

| Action                  | What it does                       |
|-------------------------|------------------------------------|
| **Activate/Deactivate** | Toggle collection on/off instantly |
| **Edit**                | Update configuration content       |
| **View history**        | See what changed and when          |

## Why this matters

Create a pipeline once, match it to collectors with attributes, and Fleet Management distributes it. One pipeline can serve hundreds of collectors.

- **Instant changes**: Changes apply with no deployments or restarts.
- **Safe experimentation**: Toggle off if something goes wrong.
- **Audit trail**: History shows what changed and when.