WARNING: @grafana/toolkit is currently in BETA.

grafana-toolkit

grafana-toolkit is a CLI that enables efficient development of Grafana plugins. We want to help our community focus on the core value of their plugins rather than all the setup required to develop them.

Getting started

Set up a new plugin with grafana-toolkit plugin:create command:

npx @grafana/toolkit plugin:create my-grafana-plugin
cd my-grafana-plugin
yarn install
yarn dev

Note: If running NPM 7+ the npx commands mentioned in this article may hang. The workaround is to use npx --legacy-peer-deps <command to run>.

Update your plugin to use grafana-toolkit

Follow the steps below to start using grafana-toolkit in your existing plugin.

1. Add @grafana/toolkit package to your project by running yarn add @grafana/toolkit or npm install @grafana/toolkit.
2. Create tsconfig.json file in the root dir of your plugin and paste the code below:

{
  "extends": "./node_modules/@grafana/toolkit/src/config/tsconfig.plugin.json",
  "include": ["src", "types"],
  "compilerOptions": {
    "rootDir": "./src",
    "baseUrl": "./src",
    "typeRoots": ["./node_modules/@types"]
  }
}

3. Create .prettierrc.js file in the root dir of your plugin and paste the code below:

module.exports = {
  ...require('./node_modules/@grafana/toolkit/src/config/prettier.plugin.config.json'),
};

4. In your package.json file add following scripts:

"scripts": {
  "build": "grafana-toolkit plugin:build",
  "test": "grafana-toolkit plugin:test",
  "dev": "grafana-toolkit plugin:dev",
  "watch": "grafana-toolkit plugin:dev --watch"
},

Usage

With grafana-toolkit, we give you a CLI that addresses common tasks performed when working on Grafana plugin:

• grafana-toolkit plugin:create
• grafana-toolkit plugin:dev
• grafana-toolkit plugin:test
• grafana-toolkit plugin:build
• grafana-toolkit plugin:sign

Create your plugin

grafana-toolkit plugin:create plugin-name

This command creates a new Grafana plugin from template.

If plugin-name is provided, then the template is downloaded to ./plugin-name directory. Otherwise, it will be downloaded to the current directory.

Develop your plugin

grafana-toolkit plugin:dev

This command creates a development build that's easy to play with and debug using common browser tooling.

Available options:

• -w, --watch - run development task in a watch mode

Test your plugin

grafana-toolkit plugin:test

This command runs Jest against your codebase.

Available options:

• --watch - Runs tests in interactive watch mode.
• --coverage - Reports code coverage.
• -u, --updateSnapshot - Performs snapshots update.
• --testNamePattern=<regex> - Runs test with names that match provided regex (https://jestjs.io/docs/en/cli#testnamepattern-regex).
• --testPathPattern=<regex> - Runs test with paths that match provided regex (https://jestjs.io/docs/en/cli#testpathpattern-regex).
• --maxWorkers=<num>|<string> - Limit number of Jest workers spawned (https://jestjs.io/docs/en/cli#--maxworkersnumstring)

Build your plugin

grafana-toolkit plugin:build

This command creates a production-ready build of your plugin.

Available options:

• --skipTest - Skip running tests as part of build. Useful if you're running the build as part of a larger pipeline.
• --skipLint - Skip linting as part of build. Useful if you're running the build as part of a larger pipeline.
• --coverage - Reports code coverage after the test step of the build.
• --preserveConsole - Preserves console statements in the code.

Sign your plugin

grafana-toolkit plugin:sign

This command creates a signed MANIFEST.txt file which Grafana uses to validate the integrity of the plugin.

Available options:

• --signatureType - The type of Signature you are generating: private, community or commercial
• --rootUrls - For private signatures, a list of the Grafana instance URLs that the plugin will be used on

To generate a signature, you will need to sign up for a free account on https://grafana.com, create an API key with the Plugin Publisher role, and pass that in the GRAFANA_API_KEY environment variable.

FAQ

Which version of grafana-toolkit should I use?

See Grafana packages versioning guide.

What tools does grafana-toolkit use?

grafana-toolkit comes with TypeScript, ESLint, Prettier, Jest, CSS and SASS support.

How to start using grafana-toolkit in my plugin?

See Updating your plugin to use grafana-toolkit.

Can I use TypeScript to develop Grafana plugins?

Yes! grafana-toolkit supports TypeScript by default.

How can I test my plugin?

grafana-toolkit comes with Jest as a test runner.

Internally at Grafana we use React Testing Library.

You can also set up Jest with shims of your needs by creating jest-shim.ts file in the same directory: <YOUR_PLUGIN_DIR_>/config/jest-shim.ts

Can I provide custom setup for Jest?

You can provide custom Jest configuration with a package.json file. For more details, see Jest docs.

Currently we support following Jest configuration properties:

• snapshotSerializers
• moduleNameMapper

I want to use monaco-editor, is there anything particular I should pay attention?

Yes there is. We already bundled monaco-editor in grafana. See [webpack config](https://github. com/grafana/grafana/blob/main/scripts/webpack/webpack.common.js#L49-L58). We use @monaco-editor/react package with loader-config https://github.com/suren-atoyan/monaco-react#loader-config By default, monaco files are being downloaded from CDN. We use the bundled version. Initialization: https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/main/scripts/webpack/webpack.common.js#L49-L58t We suggest to use the bundled version to prevent unwanted issues related to version mismatch.

How can I customize Webpack rules or plugins?

You can provide your own webpack.config.js file that exports a getWebpackConfig function. We recommend that you extend the standard configuration, but you are free to create your own:

const CustomPlugin = require('custom-plugin');

module.exports.getWebpackConfig = (config, options) => ({
  ...config,
  plugins: [...config.plugins, new CustomPlugin()],
});

How can I style my plugin?

We support pure CSS, SASS, and CSS-in-JS approach (via Emotion).

Single CSS or SASS file

Create your CSS or SASS file and import it in your plugin entry point (typically module.ts):

import 'path/to/your/css_or_sass';

The styles will be injected via style tag during runtime.

Note: that imported static assets will be inlined as base64 URIs. This can be subject of change in the future!

Theme-specific stylesheets

If you want to provide different stylesheets for dark/light theme, then create dark.[css|scss] and light.[css|scss] files in the src/styles directory of your plugin. grafana-toolkit generates theme-specific stylesheets that are stored in dist/styles directory.

In order for Grafana to pick up your theme stylesheets, you need to use loadPluginCss from @grafana/runtime package. Typically you would do that in the entry point of your plugin:

import { loadPluginCss } from '@grafana/runtime';

loadPluginCss({
  dark: 'plugins/<YOUR-PLUGIN-ID>/styles/dark.css',
  light: 'plugins/<YOUR-PLUGIN-ID>/styles/light.css',
});

You must add @grafana/runtime to your plugin dependencies by running yarn add @grafana/runtime or npm install @grafana/runtime.

Note: that in this case static files (png, svg, json, html) are all copied to dist directory when the plugin is bundled. Relative paths to those files does not change!

Emotion

Starting from Grafana 6.2 our suggested way for styling plugins is by using Emotion. It's a CSS-in-JS library that we use internally at Grafana. The biggest advantage of using Emotion is that you can access Grafana Theme variables.

To start using Emotion, you first must add it to your plugin dependencies:

  yarn add "emotion"@10.0.27

Then, import css function from Emotion:

import { css } from 'emotion';

Now you are ready to implement your styles:

const MyComponent = () => {
  return (
    <div
      className={css`
        background: red;
      `}
    />
  );
};

To learn more about using Grafana theme please refer to Theme usage guide

We do not support Emotion's css prop. Use className instead!

Can I adjust TypeScript configuration to suit my needs?

Yes! However, it's important that your tsconfig.json file contains the following lines:

{
  "extends": "./node_modules/@grafana/toolkit/src/config/tsconfig.plugin.json",
  "include": ["src"],
  "compilerOptions": {
    "rootDir": "./src",
    "typeRoots": ["./node_modules/@types"]
  }
}

Can I adjust ESLint configuration to suit my needs?

grafana-toolkit comes with default config for ESLint. For now, there is no way to customise ESLint config.

How is Prettier integrated into grafana-toolkit workflow?

When building plugin with grafana-toolkit plugin:build task, grafana-toolkit performs Prettier check. If the check detects any Prettier issues, the build will not pass. To avoid such situation we suggest developing plugin with grafana-toolkit plugin:dev --watch task running. This task tries to fix Prettier issues automatically.

My editor does not respect Prettier config, what should I do?

In order for your editor to pick up our Prettier config you need to create .prettierrc.js file in the root directory of your plugin with following content:

module.exports = {
  ...require('./node_modules/@grafana/toolkit/src/config/prettier.plugin.config.json'),
};

How do I add third-party dependencies that are not npm packages?

Put them in the static directory in the root of your project. The static directory is copied when the plugin is built.

I am getting this message when I run yarn install: Request failed \"404 Not Found\"

If you are using version canary, this error occurs because a canary release unpublishes previous versions leaving yarn.lock outdated. Remove yarn.lock and run yarn install again.

I am getting this message when I run my plugin: Unable to dynamically transpile ES module A loader plugin needs to be configured via SystemJS.config({ transpiler: 'transpiler-module' }).

This error occurs when you bundle your plugin using the grafana-toolkit plugin:dev task and your code comments include ES2016 code.

There are two issues at play:

• The grafana-toolkit plugin:dev task does not remove comments from your bundled package.
• Grafana does not support ES modules.

If your comments include ES2016 code, then SystemJS v0.20.19, which Grafana uses internally to load plugins, interprets your code as an ESM and fails.

To fix this error, remove the ES2016 code from your comments.

I would like to dynamically import modules in my plugin

Create a webpack.config.js with this content (in the root of your plugin)

// webpack.config.js
const pluginJson = require('./src/plugin.json');
module.exports.getWebpackConfig = (config, options) => ({
  ...config,
  output: {
    ...config.output,
    publicPath: `public/plugins/${pluginJson.id}/`,
  },
});

The plugin id is the id written in the plugin.json file.

Contribute to grafana-toolkit

You can contribute to grafana-toolkit by helping develop it or by debugging it.

Develop grafana-toolkit

Typically plugins should be developed using the @grafana/toolkit installed from npm. However, when working on the toolkit, you might want to use the local version. There are two ways to run the local toolkit version:

Using NODE_OPTIONS to load the yarn pnp file:

You can run grafana toolkit directly from the grafana repository with this command.

NODE_OPTIONS="--require $GRAFANA_REPO/.pnp.cjs" $GRAFANA_REPO/packages/grafana-toolkit/dist/bin/grafana-toolkit.js [command]

You can replace $GRAFANA_REPO with the path to your grafana clone or set it in your environment. e.g.: export GRAFANA_REPO=/home/dev/your_grafana_clone

Note: This will run grafana toolkit from your local clone but it won't change the dependencies of what you are trying to build.

Using yarn berry linking.

Prerequisites

For the following to work make sure to have a plugin that uses yarn berry and yarn PnP to test changes against. Feel free to clone the panel plugin here if need be.

1. Clone Grafana repository.
2. Navigate to the directory you have cloned Grafana repo to and then run yarn install --immutable.
3. Open packages/grafana-toolkit/package.json, delete any mention of @grafana/data and @grafana/ui. Then add the following:

  "devDependencies": {
    "@grafana/data": "workspace:*",
    "@grafana/ui": "workspace:*"
  },
  "peerDependencies": {
    "@grafana/data": "*",
    "@grafana/ui": "*"
  }

DO NOT commit this package.json code change. It is required to resolve these @grafana packages from the plugin for development purposes only.

4. Run yarn in the grafana repo.
5. Navigate to the directory where your plugin code is and then run yarn link <GRAFANA_DIR>/packages/grafana-toolkit. This uses yarn berry's portal protocol to "link" the grafana-toolkit package and resolve it's dependencies into your plugin code allowing you to develop toolkit and test changes against plugin code.
6. Make the required changes to Grafana toolkit.

Debug grafana-toolkit

To debug grafana-toolkit you can use standard NodeJS debugging methods (node --inspect, node --inspect-brk).

To run grafana-toolkit in a debugging session use the following command in the toolkit's directory:

node --inspect-brk ./bin/grafana-toolkit.js [task]

To run linked grafana-toolkit in a debugging session use the following command in the plugin's directory:

node --inspect-brk ./node_modules/@grafana/toolkit/bin/grafana-toolkit.js [task]