Grafana Dashboard JSON Stub Builder

Generate a minimal Grafana dashboard JSON with panels and variables

Builds an importable Grafana dashboard JSON stub with a title, time range, auto-refresh, Prometheus datasource UID, template variables, and laid-out time-series, stat, gauge, and table panels each wired to a PromQL query.

How do I import this JSON into Grafana?

In Grafana open Dashboards, choose Import, and paste the JSON or upload the file. Grafana creates the dashboard immediately; you can then save it to a folder and adjust panels in the visual editor.

A starting-point dashboard you can import in seconds

Building a Grafana dashboard by hand in the UI is fine for one panel and tedious for ten. This builder emits a clean, importable dashboard JSON stub — title, time range, refresh, datasource binding, template variables, and a grid of panels each pre-wired to a PromQL query — so you start from a working layout instead of a blank canvas.

How it works

The tool constructs the JSON Grafana expects on import. The dashboard object carries your title, a null uid (so Grafana assigns a fresh one), a current schemaVersion, a time range, a refresh interval, and a timezone. Each template variable becomes a query-type entry running label_values(<name>) against your Prometheus datasource. Each panel you add gets a sequential id, your chosen panel type (timeseries, stat, gauge, bargauge, or table), a gridPos laid out two-per-row, and a single target holding your PromQL expr. The whole structure is JSON.stringify-formatted in your browser, ready to paste into Dashboards then Import.

Tips and example

  • Find your datasource UID in Grafana under Connections then Data sources — the UID is in the page URL and the settings panel.
  • Add instance and job template variables so a single dashboard filters across every scraped target.
  • Use stat panels for single numbers like uptime and timeseries for rates such as rate(http_requests_total[5m]).
  • Treat the output as a scaffold: import it, then refine thresholds, units, and legends in Grafana’s visual editor.