Review the hybrid model
Assistant uses a hybrid deployment model for self-managed installations. The Assistant UI runs in your own Grafana deployment. The backend, usage limits, and billing stay in a Grafana Cloud stack you connect during setup.
When you use Assistant, the prompts you submit and the query context needed to generate a response are sent to the Grafana Cloud backend for processing. Your underlying data sources and infrastructure remain in your own environment.
For full details on data handling, refer to Manage your data privacy and security.
Prepare your deployments
Review the required Grafana Cloud and self-managed Grafana access before you connect your deployment.
- You have a Grafana Cloud stack with Assistant enabled. Refer to Set up Grafana Assistant in Grafana Cloud for instructions.
- You have a self-managed Grafana 13.0.0 or later deployment.
- You have organization administrator access in the self-managed Grafana deployment.
- You have administrator access in the Grafana Cloud stack.
Connect your deployment
Connect your self-managed Grafana deployment to the Grafana Cloud stack that provides the Assistant backend.
The connection flow installs the Assistant app in your self-managed Grafana instance and pairs it with your Grafana Cloud stack through an authorization flow. After the connection succeeds, Assistant becomes available in the self-managed Grafana UI.
For full setup instructions, refer to Set up Grafana Assistant in self-managed Grafana.
Note
Connect to Grafana Cloud sends your Grafana URL, including internal hostnames, to Grafana Cloud so the two deployments can be paired.
Review available features
After you connect, core chat, querying, dashboarding, and navigation are available in self-managed Grafana. Some Grafana Cloud-only features aren’t. For the full comparison, refer to What is Grafana Assistant? and Set up Grafana Assistant in self-managed Grafana.