Grafana Dashboard JSON Compatibility

This document provides a comprehensive feature-parity table between the Grafana dashboard JSON models and what Grafatui currently supports.

Snapshot: Grafatui v0.1.13. The roadmap prioritizes Grafana parity first, then user-visible product value. See the roadmap for milestone slices built from this compatibility ladder.

Legend:

• ✅ Supported — Fully implemented and working
• 🔶 Partial — Partially implemented or with limitations
• ❌ Not Implemented — Recognized but not yet functional
• ⛔ Not Applicable — Cannot be implemented in a TUI context (e.g., browser-only features)

Dashboard Schema Models

Grafatui imports the non-resource Classic JSON model and recursive GridLayout, RowsLayout, TabsLayout, and AutoGridLayout containers from the V2 Resource JSON model. In Grafana 13, use Export as code → Advanced options → Model: Classic as the fallback for unsupported advanced V2 dashboards. See the dashboard import guide for detailed steps.

V2 Resource Subset

Static AutoGrid sizing

Stages 1–3 support AutoGridLayoutItem panel references in source order, including empty groups, collapsed rows, and inactive tabs. Column counts respond to the available terminal width. Resizing preserves panel selection and adjusts scroll to keep it reachable. SVG/PNG snapshots and recordings use the same layout.

The logical scale is 10 pixels per column and 18 pixels per row, shared with exports. Width presets become 20/45/77 columns; height presets become 10/18/29 rows. Panels use the widest fitting column count, capped by maxColumnCount and item count, with at least one column. Remainder cells go to earlier columns. These are terminal adaptations; panel dimensions do not scale with font size.

Run the static example with:

grafatui --grafana-json examples/dashboards/grafana_v2_autogrid.json \
  --prometheus-url http://localhost:9090

With fillScreen: true, extra height is shared across row tracks, with remainder cells assigned to earlier rows. Each visible row header or tab bar deducts one cell from its child viewport; hidden row headers deduct nothing. Minimum row heights can overflow and scroll. Scrolling and preceding siblings do not change the allocation; following siblings begin after the filled grid’s full extent. Empty grids consume no height. This setting does not enter single-panel fullscreen.

Run the fill-screen example with the same command, substituting its filename.

Table fitting counts only visible series, preserving existing ordering, value formatting, threshold colors and single-row cell clipping. A nonempty table needs N + 4 cells for N rows, its column header, margin and borders; an empty table needs 3. Widths with no body space need only borders. Unsupported renderers (graph, unknown, stat, gauge, bar gauge, heatmap), including their errors, retain the baseline. Table errors fit their wrapped body lines plus two border cells. A missing minimum inherits rowHeight; supplied dimensions are validated even when their mode does not consume them. Fixed panels still contribute their full baseline to prevent overlap beside shorter fitted tables.

With fitting, row tracks follow the tallest contribution. fillScreen distributes only extra height above those tracks and keeps a baseline track floor. matchRowHeights: false keeps individual heights even in filled grids; unused gaps have no click target. This setting now also prevents fixed panels from stretching during fill growth. Dashboard scrolling reveals lower fitted table rows while keeping the clipped panel title and table header visible. Refreshes reconcile focus and scroll after table data grows or shrinks. SVG/PNG and recordings use the same row window and logical 18-pixel spacing.

Run the content-fit example with the same command, substituting its filename.

Maximum heights bound fitting panels, including after row matching and fill stretch a track. The minimum wins when it exceeds the maximum. Ordinary panels keep their baseline sizing. To use a short cap below the standard row height, set minHeightMode: none, as in the bounded example.

Capped fitting tables have independent body offsets. Ctrl+Up/Ctrl+Down scroll one row, Ctrl+PgUp/Ctrl+PgDn page, and Ctrl+Home/Ctrl+End reach the first/last window. Borders and table headers stay fixed; error bodies use the same controls and wrapped lines in TUI, SVG/PNG and recordings. Only the selected overflowing body owns unmodified wheel input; headers, borders, gaps, other panels and Shift+wheel keep dashboard scrolling. Search and annotation modals retain their controls.

Fullscreen bypasses the cap and uses its visible body capacity, including when a tiny cap cannot fit data. The same offset is clamped on entry/exit, resize, data or visibility changes. Changing errors and error recovery reset it; row collapse and inactive tabs retain offsets until reactivation. Ordinary and unlimited-fit fullscreen keep their existing presentation.

AutoGrid layout semantics are supported for Grafatui’s panel renderers and data sources. Selected variable lists retain source order and labels; All repeats concrete options instead of a query regex. Containing row/tab declarations shadow dashboard values, and each repeated panel has its own binding. Surviving instances retain data, focus and body scroll when selections change.

Item conditions support all four variable operators, query-data presence and range duration with AND/OR and show/hide composition. Pending results are omitted; a group without known results remains visible. Invalid regexes return true as in Grafana; invalid intervals remain pending. Month/year intervals use fixed 30/365 day durations; the upstream condition rejects milliseconds and truncates a decimal interval count before applying its unit. Hidden data-dependent instances continue refreshing while their containing row/tab is active. Variable/time-hidden items without a data predicate skip queries. Hidden items reserve no grid cells.

Run the dynamic example against Prometheus to repeat up tables for the selected instances. Zooming beyond one hour hides those tables through the range condition. Repeated rows/tabs and their conditional settings, library panels and transformations remain separate compatibility work.

Unsupported settings fail during import, including inside inactive tabs and collapsed rows.

V2 resources are accepted as JSON or YAML. Use a Classic export for any advanced V2 dashboard outside this grid, rows, tabs, and AutoGrid subset.

Dashboard-Level Properties

Panels

Panel Types

Graph & Timeseries Parity

Panel Common Fields

Targets (Queries)

PromQL Special Variables

Templating (Variables)

Variable Substitution

Field Configuration (fieldConfig)

fieldConfig is partially implemented. Thresholds, explicit min/max bounds, selected display formatting fields, threshold style, and per-panel autogrid settings are parsed; exact numeric-to-text value mappings are supported, while display names and field overrides remain major gaps.

Thresholds

Panel Options (options)

Panel-specific options are not parsed yet. Grafatui currently applies its own compact TUI defaults for legends, stat sparklines, gauges, and inspect-mode tooltips.

Annotations

Grafatui external file/command JSONL events are a separate, opt-in read-only source. panel_titles is Grafatui’s external-source routing field: it matches eligible graph/timeseries panel titles exactly, not Grafana panel IDs. It does not imply compatibility with Grafana annotation queries, APIs, annotations, or annotations.list.

Data Links & Transformations

Alert Rules

Datasource Configuration

Summary Statistics

Most Requested Missing Features

Based on user feedback, the following missing features are most commonly expected:

1. Broader unit formatting (fieldConfig.defaults.unit) — Extend the current common-unit subset to more Grafana unit families
2. Broader reduce options (options.reduceOptions) — Add field filters, all-values mode, and multiple calculations beyond the supported single-calculation subset
3. Broader value mappings (fieldConfig.defaults.mappings) — Add range and useful special-value mappings beyond exact numeric labels
4. Import diagnostics — Warn clearly about skipped panel types and ignored high-impact fields
5. Additional panel types — text, piechart, histogram, logs

What Grafatui Does Instead

Grafatui provides several TUI-native capabilities that don’t map directly to Grafana JSON features:

This document was reviewed against the Grafatui source code on 2026-10-13. If you notice any inaccuracies, please open an issue or PR.