skills

Cut Grafana Cloud Metrics cost by shrinking active-series count with Adaptive Metrics aggregation rules — auto-recommendations from query history, custom exact/regex rules, label-drop config, unused-metric detection, and Alloy remote_write fallback. Use when investigating a high Mimir/Grafana Cloud bill, hunting high-cardinality labels (`pod_uid`, `service_instance_id`, `version`), pre-aggregating counters/gauges, dropping unused metrics, or measuring `grafanacloud_instance_active_series` before/after — even when the user says "reduce cardinality", "too many series", "metrics spend", "active series count is exploding", or "drop the version label" without naming Adaptive Metrics.

Manage Grafana Cloud accounts — organizations, stacks, RBAC roles and assignments, SSO/SAML/OAuth/GitHub auth, service accounts for CI/CD, user invites, team membership, and API-driven provisioning. Creates stacks via the Cloud API, mints service-account tokens, applies role assignments, configures SSO providers, and provisions teams/folders/dashboards via Terraform. Use when managing Grafana Cloud access, configuring SSO/SAML/OAuth, setting up service accounts for Terraform/CI/CD, assigning RBAC roles, inviting users, managing multiple stacks or organizations, provisioning cloud resources via API or Terraform, or auditing admin actions — even when the user says "set up SSO", "create a stack", "make a service account", or "onboard a team" without explicitly saying "admin".

Use when the user asks to "write a validator", "add validation", "implement admission control", "write a mutating webhook", "add a mutation handler", "validate incoming resources", "implement admission logic", "add admission webhooks", "write ingress validation", or asks how to validate or mutate resources before they are persisted in a grafana-app-sdk app. Provides guidance on implementing validation and mutation admission handlers for grafana-app-sdk apps.

Configure Grafana Alerting, Incident Response Management (IRM), and SLOs end-to-end — provisions Grafana-managed and data-source-managed alert rules, contact points (Slack/PagerDuty/email/webhook), notification policies with hierarchical matchers, silences, mute timings, on-call schedules and escalation chains, incident-management integrations, and SLOs with multi-window burn-rate alerts. Use when configuring alerts, debugging notification routing, setting up on-call rotations, declaring or managing incidents, defining SLOs, provisioning alerting via YAML or API, picking matchers for a notification policy, building a PagerDuty/Slack webhook receiver, or troubleshooting why an alert isn't firing — even when the user says "page me on errors", "alert me when X happens", "route this to the platform team", or "set up an SLO" without naming Alerting or IRM.

Build a unified telemetry pipeline with Grafana Alloy — one OpenTelemetry-compatible binary that collects metrics, logs, traces, and profiles and ships to Grafana Cloud / Prometheus / Loki / Tempo / Pyroscope. Covers the Alloy config language (blocks, `sys.env`, component refs), `prometheus.scrape` → `remote_write`, `loki.source.file` + `loki.process` → `loki.write`, `otelcol.receiver.otlp` → `otelcol.exporter.otlp`, `pyroscope.scrape`, K8s / Docker / EC2 discovery, relabeling, modules (`import.file/git/http`), clustering, Fleet Management `remotecfg`, the Alloy UI at `:12345`, and `alloy fmt` / `alloy validate`. Use when writing a `config.alloy`, replacing Grafana Agent / OTel Collector, scraping K8s pods, parsing logs, ingesting OTLP, or debugging "Alloy isn't sending anything" — even when the user says "set up the agent", "write me a scrape config", "drop these logs before sending", or "OTel collector config" without naming Alloy.

Get RED metrics + service maps + frontend RUM + AI/LLM monitoring out of Grafana Cloud — Application Observability (`traces_spanmetrics_*` from OTel traces, p50/p95/p99 latency, exemplar-to-trace, traces-to-logs / profiles), Frontend Observability with the Faro Web SDK (Core Web Vitals, session replay, `pushError`, React + router integration, `TracingInstrumentation` for browser → backend trace correlation), and AI Observability via OpenLIT (token / cost / latency, GPU, hallucination + toxicity evals). Use when standing up APM for a service, wiring an Alloy OTLP receiver + forwarding to Cloud, instrumenting a React frontend for RUM, debugging why service-map edges are missing, monitoring LLM cost drift, or correlating a frontend error to its backend trace — even when the user says "set up APM", "show service map", "monitor browser perf", "session replay", "RUM SDK", or "watch our OpenAI bill" without naming App / Frontend / AI Observability.

Use when starting any grafana-app-sdk work — scaffolding a Grafana app, initializing a Grafana App Platform app, picking a deployment mode (standalone operator / grafana/apps / frontend-only), wiring app-specific config, or onboarding to the SDK. Covers `grafana-app-sdk` CLI install, `project init` per deployment mode, project layout, the schema-centric workflow (CUE kinds → generated code → reconciler/admission logic), and `SpecificConfig` for env-driven app configuration. Use even if the user just says "make a new app", "Grafana app platform", "kinds and watchers", "operator scaffold", or asks about `apps/` inside the Grafana repo, without naming the SDK explicitly.

Connect AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, OpenAI Codex) to Grafana Cloud via the `mcp-grafana` Model Context Protocol server. Installs the server with `go install`, generates a Grafana service-account token, wires `~/.claude/settings.json` or `~/.cursor/mcp.json` with the `command` + `env` block, runs `--disable-write` for safer read-only sessions, switches to SSE transport for team-shared / VS Code setups, and verifies with `/mcp` + a `list_datasources` round-trip. Use when connecting Claude Code to Grafana, setting up MCP for Grafana, configuring the Grafana MCP server, using Grafana tools in Cursor/VS Code, querying Grafana from an AI agent, sharing the MCP server across a team — even when the user says "give my agent Grafana access", "let Claude see my metrics", or "Cursor + Grafana" without saying "MCP".

Reduces JavaScript dependency footprint with pnpm while preserving lockfile, workspace layout, and dependency range style. Runs /check-npm first, then removes unused deps, dedupes versions, ranks transitive closure, and reports Keep/Replace/Remove triage. Use when cleaning up pnpm dependencies, reducing lockfile size, or shrinking node_modules in Grafana plugins; not for Go modules or full GitHub Actions workflow audits.

Auto-instrument an application's HTTP / gRPC / DB traffic with Grafana Beyla eBPF — no code changes, no SDK, no restart. Covers requirements (Linux 5.8+ with BTF, CAP_SYS_ADMIN, host PID), language matrix (Go / Java / Python / Ruby / Node / .NET / Rust / C++ / PHP), Docker + Helm + DaemonSet install, port- / process- / Kubernetes-metadata discovery, OTLP traces + Prometheus metrics export, routes decorator (cardinality control), trace sampling, and Grafana Cloud via Alloy. Use when adding observability to a service you can't recompile, instrumenting a closed-source binary, getting RED metrics + spans onto Tempo/Mimir without touching the app, or rolling Beyla as a cluster-wide DaemonSet — even when the user says "zero-code APM", "instrument legacy app", "trace this binary", "eBPF observability", or "no SDK" without naming Beyla.

Audit a JavaScript/TypeScript repo's npm, yarn, or pnpm configuration for supply-chain hardening: tool version, lifecycle scripts, unsafe dependency protocols, and minimum release age ≥3 days. Use when the user invokes /check-npm or asks to audit package manager security, lifecycle scripts, git dependencies, ignore-scripts, min-release-age, allow-git, approvedGitRepositories, strictDepBuilds, or blockExoticSubdeps in a Grafana plugin or JS/TS project.

Set up, configure, and troubleshoot Grafana Cloud integrations for AWS, Azure, and other cloud providers. Use when the user asks to connect AWS CloudWatch, set up Azure Monitor, configure Confluent Cloud observability, install a Grafana integration, set up hosted exporters, use AWS Firehose for CloudWatch logs, or troubleshoot a cloud integration. Triggers on phrases like "AWS CloudWatch", "Azure Monitor", "Confluent integration", "cloud integration", "hosted exporter", "AWS Firehose", "install integration", "cloud metrics", or "cloud logs".

Cut your Grafana Cloud bill by attributing spend to teams and reducing telemetry volume. Covers FOCUS-compliant billing dashboards, cost-attribution labels in Alloy, Adaptive Metrics (cardinality reduction), Adaptive Logs (drop/sample), Adaptive Traces (tail sampling), usage alerts, and an optimization checklist. Use when investigating a high Grafana Cloud bill, attributing observability cost to a team or service, reducing active series / log bytes / trace spans, or setting up usage / quota alerts — even when the user says "our Grafana bill is too high", "who's burning the most metrics", "drop debug logs", "sample our traces", or "alert me before we hit quota" without naming Cost Management.

Author CUE kind definitions for grafana-app-sdk apps - schemas, versioning, field constraints, named type definitions, custom routes, and codegen configuration. Scaffolds kinds via `grafana-app-sdk project kind add`, writes spec/status schemas with type constraints (regex, enum, range), defines `#`-prefixed named types for reusable structs, registers versions in the app manifest, and runs `grafana-app-sdk generate` with explicit error recovery. Use when working with CUE kinds, adding a new resource type, adding a version to an existing kind, writing schema field constraints, defining `#Definition` types, adding custom routes, editing files under `kinds/`, or when the user asks to "model a resource", "add a CUE schema", or "write a kind" — even without saying "CUE" explicitly.

Build, modify, and ship Grafana dashboards as JSON via the HTTP API — panel types (timeseries / stat / gauge / table / heatmap / logs / traces / node-graph), `gridPos` 24-column layout, units, thresholds, template + datasource + chained variables, transformations (`organize` / `calculateField` / `filterByValue`), panel + dashboard links with `${__field.labels.x}` / `${__from}`, and Loki/Prometheus annotations. Use when scripting dashboard creation, writing the dashboard JSON for a new service, adding a `$job` dropdown variable, computing an "Error %" column with a transformation, overlaying deploys as annotations, or pushing a dashboard via `POST /api/dashboards/db` — even when the user says "create a dashboard for this metric", "add a service dropdown", "show errors as percentage", "overlay our deploys", or "export the dashboard JSON" without naming the API or schema. After every API push, verify with the returned `version` plus a GET on the dashboard UID.

Set up Grafana Cloud Database Observability for MySQL and PostgreSQL — enables `pg_stat_statements` / Performance Schema, creates a least-privilege monitoring user, configures the `database_observability.postgres` / `database_observability.mysql` Alloy components, ships query samples + visual explain plans + RED metrics + schema details to Grafana Cloud, and correlates slow queries with application traces via `db.statement` / `db.system` OTel attributes. Use when monitoring database performance, diagnosing slow queries, setting up DB observability for RDS / Aurora / Cloud SQL / Azure Database / self-managed instances, correlating DB metrics with APM, or alerting on query latency — even when the user says "my database is slow", "find the slow queries", or "monitor RDS" without saying "observability".

Generate a copy-paste Grafana data source provisioning file (YAML or Terraform) for any plugin from its standardized settings schema on the plugins CDN. Use when the user wants to provision or configure a data source as code — e.g. "provision infinity", "datasource yaml for clickhouse", "terraform for the github datasource" — even when they only name the plugin and not the word "provisioning".

Find the Prometheus metrics that drive your Grafana Cloud bill. `dpm-finder` is a Grafana Professional Services CLI that ranks metrics by Data Points per Minute (DPM) with per-label-set breakdown, optional `--cost-per-1000-series` pricing, and a Prometheus-exporter mode. Use when investigating high Grafana Cloud spend, hunting noisy / high-cardinality metrics, comparing pre/post recording-rule cardinality, or feeding cost data into dashboards — even when the user says "why is my Mimir bill so high?", "find the biggest metrics", "cardinality offenders", or "optimize Prometheus cost" without naming dpm-finder.

Manage a fleet of Grafana Alloy collectors with Fleet Management — author Alloy pipelines once, target them via attribute matchers (`env="production"`, regex `region=~"us-.*"`), push remotely via OpAMP without restarting collectors. Covers pipeline create / update / matcher RPCs, collector attribute API, `remotecfg` bootstrap block (standalone + Helm), pre-deploy `alloy fmt` validation, the local Alloy UI at port 12345 for component health, and post-deploy `REMOTE_CONFIG_STATUS_APPLIED` verification. Use when standing up a Cloud Alloy fleet, pushing a config change to 200 collectors, hunting why one collector shows `REMOTE_CONFIG_STATUS_FAILED`, validating River syntax before saving, or wiring `discovery.kubernetes` → `prometheus.remote_write` — even when the user says "configure Alloy", "remote config the collectors", "push pipeline", "OpAMP", "collector is unhealthy", or "manage agent config centrally" without naming Fleet Management.

Diagnoses a Grafana Frontend Observability (RUM) session: whether it is healthy, what went wrong, ranked problems with timestamps and evidence, likely cause, how to fix it. Optional follow-up: zoom in on the top error, impact across sessions, Session Replay, or a Tempo trace if the user asks. Fetches telemetry with `gcx frontend sessions get --save` and reads only that dump file. Use when the user asks to explain, diagnose, analyse, RCA, or review a session; asks if a session is healthy; pastes Frontend Observability session context (app id, session id, datasource UID); or mentions Faro, user journey, Core Web Vitals, exceptions, ANR, or a web or mobile RUM session — even if they do not say "session narrator" or "frontend-session-rca". Do not use this skill to instrument an app (Faro Web, React Native, Flutter, native OpenTelemetry) — use `app-observability` for Faro Web setup instead.