Grafana dashboards

Dashboards are ConfigMaps, not clicked together in the UI. Grafana's sidecar (part of the kube-prometheus-stack HelmRelease, grafana.sidecar.dashboards) watches every namespace for ConfigMaps labelled grafana_dashboard: "1" and loads whatever JSON it finds. kubernetes/apps/monitoring/grafana-dashboards/app/ turns each dashboard's raw JSON into one ConfigMap with kustomize's configMapGenerator.

Adding a dashboard

1. Fetch the dashboard JSON from its real source, grafana.com's /api/dashboards/<id>/revisions/<rev>/download, or the raw file from the project that publishes it. Do not hand-write dashboard JSON.
2. Drop the file in kubernetes/apps/monitoring/grafana-dashboards/app/ next to the others.
3. If it uses a DS_PROMETHEUS-style input template variable for its datasource (most grafana.com exports do), replace it. Sidecar-provisioned dashboards are not imported through the UI, so the __inputs substitution never runs and every panel renders empty. Point panels, targets and annotations at {"type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus"} directly, that is the datasource kube-prometheus-stack provisions (grafana.sidecar.datasources, name Prometheus, uid prometheus), and drop the now-unused template variable. See kubernetes/apps/monitoring/grafana-dashboards/app/*.json for worked examples, or reuse the conversion in the PR that added this doc.
4. Add a configMapGenerator entry for it in app/kustomization.yaml. Every entry inherits the grafana_dashboard label and disableNameSuffixHash: true from the file's generatorOptions, so nothing else needs setting per dashboard.
5. Run mise exec -- task lint.

A ConfigMap has a 1MiB size ceiling. Node Exporter Full is the dashboard most likely to brush against it; if a fetched dashboard is close, say so in the PR rather than trimming panels silently.

Tracking upstream versions

grafana.com-sourced dashboards carry a <name>.grafanadashboard.yaml file next to the JSON, recording the exact id/revision download URL. Renovate's grafanaDashboards preset (.renovaterc.json5) watches that URL and opens a PR when a new revision exists; the PR only bumps the number; re-run the download and overwrite the JSON by hand.

Dashboards sourced from a project's own git repository (Cilium, Hubble, Flux) are pinned to a tag or commit SHA instead. Renovate does not track those; re-fetching at a newer ref is a manual, occasional task, not something to automate for a homelab with one consumer of the dashboard.

Current set

Dashboard	Source	Pinned at
Node Exporter Full	grafana.com dashboard 1860	revision 45
cert-manager	grafana.com dashboard 20340	revision 1
Cilium Agent	cilium/cilium install/kubernetes/cilium/files/cilium-agent/dashboards/cilium-dashboard.json	tag v1.20.0
Cilium Operator	cilium/cilium install/kubernetes/cilium/files/cilium-operator/dashboards/cilium-operator-dashboard.json	tag v1.20.0
Hubble	cilium/cilium install/kubernetes/cilium/files/hubble/dashboards/hubble-dashboard.json	tag v1.20.0
Flux Cluster Stats	fluxcd/flux2-monitoring-example monitoring/configs/dashboards/cluster.json	commit 7ab65dc
Flux Control Plane	fluxcd/flux2-monitoring-example monitoring/configs/dashboards/control-plane.json	commit 7ab65dc

Flux's own repository dropped its bundled dashboards in v2.2 (December 2023) in favour of fluxcd/flux2-monitoring-example, which is not tagged, hence the commit pin rather than a version. Cilium ships three more Hubble dashboards in the same directory (DNS, L7 HTTP, per-namespace network overview); only the main one is included here, add the others the same way if they turn out to be useful.