---
title: "Deploy a dashboard with Terraform | Grafana Labs"
description: "Welcome to the learning path that shows you how to deploy SDK-generated dashboard JSON to Grafana using the Terraform provider."
---

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

# Deploy a dashboard with Terraform

Welcome to the learning path that shows you how to deploy dashboard JSON to a running Grafana instance using the Grafana Terraform provider. If you already have a dashboard JSON file (from the Foundation SDK, exported from the UI, or any other source), this path walks you through deploying it with Terraform’s plan-and-apply workflow.

The Grafana Terraform provider lets you manage dashboards alongside your other infrastructure resources. Same tool, same state management, same deployment process.

## Here’s what to expect

When you complete this journey, you’ll be able to:

- Create a Grafana service account token for Terraform authentication
- Configure the Grafana Terraform provider
- Define a `grafana_dashboard` resource that deploys a JSON file
- Run `terraform plan` to preview changes before applying
- Run `terraform apply` to deploy the dashboard to Grafana
- Verify the dashboard appears in your Grafana instance

## Before you begin

Before you deploy a dashboard with Terraform, ensure you have:

- A Grafana Cloud account or self-managed Grafana instance (version 12 or higher). To create an account, refer to [Grafana Cloud](/signup/cloud/connect-account).
- [Terraform](https://www.terraform.io/downloads) installed (version 1.0 or later)
- A dashboard JSON file ready to deploy, either from the [Build a dashboard with the Foundation SDK](/docs/learning-paths/build-dashboard-sdk/) path or exported from the Grafana UI
- Admin or Editor permissions on your Grafana instance

## Troubleshooting

If you get stuck, we’ve got your back! Where appropriate, troubleshooting information is just a click away.

## More to explore

We understand you might want to explore other capabilities not strictly on this path. We’ll provide you opportunities where it makes sense.