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grafaml

Create Grafana Dashboards from YAML using Helm Chart templating.

This YAML:

title: "Simple Dashboard"
panels:
  columns: 2
  panelHeight: 8
  list:
    - title: "Prometheus Targets Up"
      type: "stat"
      targets:
        - expr: "up"

    - title: "Resource Usage in Percent"
      description: "Memory and CPU Usage"
      type: "stat"
      targets:
        - expr: "(1 - (node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes / node_memory_MemTotal_bytes)) * 100"
          legendFormat: "Memory Usage"
        - expr: "sum by (instance, job)(avg by (mode, instance) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode!='idle'}[2m]))) * 100"
          legendFormat: "CPU Usage"

    - title: "Memory Usage in Percent over Time"
      type: "timeseries"
      targets:
        - expr: "(1 - (node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes / node_memory_MemTotal_bytes)) * 100"

    - title: "CPU Usage in Percent over Time"
      type: "timeseries"
      targets:
        - expr: "sum by (instance, job) (avg by (mode, instance) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode!='idle'}[2m])))"

Becomes this dashboard:

Simple Dashboard

Problems Grafaml Addresses

  1. Grafana UI: Creating and editing Dashboards in the Grafana UI can be a painstaking and slow process.

  2. Grafana JSON Model: Creating and editing Dashboards via the Grafana JSON model is complicated, due to the complexity of the JSON model and the absolute positioning of panels.

  3. Version Control: Tracking dashboard changes in Git with the Grafan JSON model is inefficient. Even little changes to the dashboard can cause hundreds of lines to change.

Features

Create Dashboards from YAML: Instead of using the Grafana UI or writing complex JSON models, you can write simplified YAML files from which the dashboard JSON is generated. With this, version control becomes efficient again.

Grid-Based Panel Positioning: Instead of worrying about the absolute positioning of every single panel, Grafaml arranges panels based on their definition order in a grid with a flexible number of columns.

Kubernetes Deployment: Grafaml is a Helm Chart. Grafana Dashboards can be deployed as ConfigMaps, which can optionally be discovered by the Grafana Sidecar Container.

Limitations

Variable Positioning of Panels: Panels are arranged in a grid based on their definition order. Due to this, it is not possible to have panels with variable width or positioning.

Getting started

Creating the dashboard YAML

First we need to create a Helm Values file containing the definition of our dashboard. We'll call the file values-my-dashboard.json. It will define a very simple dashboard with only 2 panels:

title: "Simple Dashboard"
panels:
  colums: 2
  panelHeight: 8
  list:
    - title: "Memory Usage in Percent over Time"
      type: "timeseries"
      targets:
        - expr: "(1 - (node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes / node_memory_MemTotal_bytes)) * 100"
    - title: "CPU Usage in Percent over Time"
      type: "timeseries"
      targets:
        - expr: "sum by (instance, job) (avg by (mode, instance) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode!='idle'}[2m])))"

You can find all possible configuration options in the default values.yaml and in the README.md of the Helm Chart`.

You can find example Dashboards in the example-dashboards directory.

In the next step, the values-my-dashboard.json will be merged with the default default values.yaml, from which the dashboard JSON will be generated.

Generating the dashboard JSON

This step is optional if you want to deploy the dashboard in a Kubernetes Cluster.

Execute this code in your Shell to create a dashboard.json:

# Adapt the variables to your needs
name="my-dashboard"
values="./values-my-dashboard.yaml"
helm template $name oci://registry-1.docker.io/ernail/grafaml --values $values --set onlyRenderDashboardJson=true | tail -n +3 > dashboard.json

Deploying the dashboard in Kubernetes

Execute this code in your shell to deploy the dashboard as ConfigMap in Kubernetes:

name="my-dashboard"
values="./values-my-dashboard.yaml"
namespace="my-namespace"
helm upgrade $name oci://registry-1.docker.io/ernail/grafaml --install --create-namespace --namespace $namespace --values $values

If you are using the Grafana Sidecar Container, the dashboard should now be available in your Grafana.

Usage

The basic usage of Grafaml is already explained in the Getting Started section. Any additional usage information is documented here.

Using Helmfile

Helmfile is a declarative spec for deploying Helm Charts. It can be used to simplify the commands for rendering and deploying the dashboards.

If you want to use Helmfile, here is an example helmfile.yaml:

repositories:
  - name: "ernail"
    url: "registry-1.docker.io/ernail"
    oci: true

releases:
  - name: "my-dashboard"
    namespace: "my-namespace"
    chart: "ernail/grafaml"
    version: "1.0.0"
    values:
      - "./values-my-dashboard.yaml"
      - onlyRenderDashboardJson: false

Execute this code in your Shell to create a dashboard.json:

helmfile template --file ./helmfile.yaml --set onlyRenderDashboardJson=true | tail -n +3 > dashboard.json

Execute this code in your shell to deploy the dashboard as ConfigMap in Kubernetes:

helmfile apply --file ./helmfile.yaml

Development

Testing

helm unittest ./charts/grafaml

Linting

pip install -r requirements.txt
pre-commit run --all-files
helm lint ./charts/grafaml
kube-linter lint ./charts/grafaml

Templating

Using Helm:

helm template grafaml ./charts/grafaml

Using Helmfile:

helmfile template --file ./charts/grafaml/helmfile.yaml

Deploying

Using Helm:

helm upgrade grafaml ./charts/grafaml --install --create-namespace --namespace grafaml

Using Helmfile:

helmfile apply --file ./charts/grafaml/helmfile.yaml

Generating documentation

helm-docs ./charts/grafaml/