Documentation Plugins Looker data source Configure

Configure the Looker data source

This document explains how to configure the Looker data source. To install the plugin, refer to Install the Looker data source plugin.

Before you begin

Before you configure the data source, ensure you have:

• Grafana permissions: The Organization administrator role, which you need to add and configure data sources.
• A Looker instance URL: The base URL of your Looker instance, such as https://xxxxx.looker.app.
• Looker API credentials: A client ID and client secret with permission to run queries and read the models you plan to visualize.

Key concepts

If you’re new to Looker, these terms are used throughout the configuration:

Get Looker API credentials

To connect Grafana to Looker, you need a client ID and client secret from your Looker instance. To generate them, in Looker, navigate to Admin > Users, select a user, click Edit Keys, then click New API Key. For full instructions, refer to Looker API authentication.

Use credentials for a user or service account whose role and permission set grant read access to the models you want to query.

Add the data source

To add the Looker data source:

1. Click Connections in the left-side menu.
2. Click Add new connection.
3. Type Looker in the search bar.
4. Select Looker.
5. Click Add new data source.

Configure settings

Set the following options to connect to your Looker instance.

Authentication

The Looker data source authenticates to the Looker API with a client ID and client secret. Enter the Looker Client ID and Looker Client Secret from your API credentials. Grafana exchanges these credentials for a short-lived API token when it queries Looker.

Verify the connection

Click Save & test to verify the connection. On success, Grafana displays a message similar to Successfully connected to Looker. 5 LookML models found, where the number reflects the models your credentials can access.

If the test fails, refer to Troubleshoot Looker data source issues.

Provision with YAML files

You can define the Looker data source in YAML files as part of the Grafana provisioning system. For more information, refer to Provisioning Grafana.

The following example provisions a Looker data source:

YAML Copy

apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: Looker
    type: grafana-looker-datasource
    jsonData:
      base_url: https://xxxxx.looker.app
      client_id: <YOUR_LOOKER_CLIENT_ID>
    secureJsonData:
      client_secret: <YOUR_LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET>

The following table describes the available jsonData and secureJsonData fields:

Configure Looker with Terraform

You can configure the Looker data source as code using the Grafana Terraform provider. This approach enables version-controlled, reproducible data source configurations across environments.

The following example provisions a Looker data source and defines the required variables:

Terraform Copy

terraform {
  required_providers {
    grafana = {
      source  = "grafana/grafana"
      version = "~> 3.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "grafana" {
  url  = var.grafana_url
  auth = var.grafana_auth
}

resource "grafana_data_source" "looker" {
  type = "grafana-looker-datasource"
  name = "Looker"

  json_data_encoded = jsonencode({
    base_url  = var.looker_base_url
    client_id = var.looker_client_id
  })

  secure_json_data_encoded = jsonencode({
    client_secret = var.looker_client_secret
  })
}

# Variables
variable "grafana_url" {
  description = "Grafana instance URL"
  type        = string
  default     = "http://localhost:3000"
}

variable "grafana_auth" {
  description = "Grafana authentication, such as admin:password or a service account token"
  type        = string
  sensitive   = true
}

variable "looker_base_url" {
  description = "Base URL of your Looker instance"
  type        = string
}

variable "looker_client_id" {
  description = "Looker API client ID"
  type        = string
}

variable "looker_client_secret" {
  description = "Looker API client secret"
  type        = string
  sensitive   = true
}

Next steps

• Use the Looker query editor
• Configure template variables