Grafana Dashboard Backup

A serverless Azure Function (PowerShell, Flex Consumption) that runs on a daily cron schedule, exports all dashboard JSON from an Azure Managed Grafana instance, and commits them to a GitHub repository as an incremental backup.

How it works

1. Timer trigger fires daily at midnight UTC (0 0 0 * * *).
2. The function queries the Grafana API for every dashboard.
3. Each dashboard's JSON is exported with id nulled out so it can be directly imported into a fresh Grafana instance via POST /api/dashboards/db.
4. The file tree in the target GitHub branch is compared (by Git blob SHA) with the new exports.
5. If any dashboards were added, modified, or removed, a single batch commit is created on the target branch. The commit message follows this format:

   chore(backup): Backup on 2026-03-19
   
   Added: My New Dashboard (uid123)
   Modified: Server Metrics (uid456)
   Removed: dashboards/OldFolder/uid789.json
   

6. If nothing changed, no commit is made.

Repository layout

Dashboards are stored mirroring the Grafana folder structure:

dashboards/
├── General/
│   └── abc123.json
├── Infrastructure/
│   └── def456.json
└── Application/
    └── ghi789.json

Each file is named by the dashboard's Grafana UID. The dashboard title, panels, and all configuration are inside the JSON.

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Prerequisites

Requirement	Details
Azure Function App	Flex Consumption plan, PowerShell 7.4 runtime, North Central US (or your region)
Grafana Service Account Token	Create a Service Account in your Azure Managed Grafana instance with Viewer role, then generate a token. See Grafana Service Accounts docs.
GitHub PAT	Classic PAT with repo scope, or a fine-grained PAT with Contents: Read and write permission on the target repository.
GitHub repository	Private repo with a branch named grafana_export already created. The branch can be empty (initial commit only) or have existing content.

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Environment variables

Configure these as Application Settings on the Function App (or in local.settings.json for local dev):

Variable	Required	Description
GRAFANA_URL	Yes	Azure Managed Grafana endpoint, e.g. https://myinstance.cuse.grafana.azure.com
GRAFANA_API_KEY	Yes	Grafana Service Account token (starts with glsa_)
GITHUB_REPO	Yes	Target repo in owner/repo format
GITHUB_PAT	Yes	GitHub Personal Access Token
GITHUB_BRANCH	No	Branch to commit to (default: grafana_export)
GITHUB_COMMIT_AUTHOR_NAME	No	Git author name (default: Grafana Backup Bot)
GITHUB_COMMIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL	No	Git author email (default: grafana-backup-bot@users.noreply.github.com)

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Deploy via VS Code

1. Install the Azure Functions VS Code extension.
2. Copy local.settings.json.example to local.settings.json and fill in your values (for local testing only).
3. Right-click the workspace root in VS Code → Deploy to Function App… → select your Flex Consumption Function App.
4. After deployment, add the environment variables above as Application Settings in the Azure portal (or via Azure CLI):

   az functionapp config appsettings set \
     --name <function-app-name> \
     --resource-group <rg-name> \
     --settings \
       GRAFANA_URL="https://..." \
       GRAFANA_API_KEY="glsa_..." \
       GITHUB_REPO="owner/repo" \
       GITHUB_PAT="ghp_..."

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Local development

# Install Azure Functions Core Tools (if not already)
npm install -g azure-functions-core-tools@4 --unsafe-perm true

# Copy and fill in settings
Copy-Item local.settings.json.example local.settings.json
# Edit local.settings.json with real values

# Start the function locally
func start

The timer trigger won't fire immediately when running locally. To test on demand, send an admin request:

Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "http://localhost:7071/admin/functions/BackupGrafanaDashboards" `
    -Method Post -Body '{}' -ContentType "application/json"

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Restoring dashboards to a fresh Grafana instance

Each JSON file under dashboards/ is a complete Grafana dashboard model (with id: null) that can be imported directly:

$token = "glsa_your_new_instance_token"
$grafanaUrl = "https://new-instance.grafana.azure.com"

Get-ChildItem -Path ./dashboards -Recurse -Filter *.json | ForEach-Object {
    $dashboard = Get-Content $_.FullName -Raw | ConvertFrom-Json
    $folderName = $_.Directory.Name

    $body = @{
        dashboard = $dashboard
        overwrite = $true
        message   = "Restored from backup"
    } | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 100

    Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "$grafanaUrl/api/dashboards/db" `
        -Headers @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $token"; "Content-Type" = "application/json" } `
        -Method Post -Body $body
}

Note: This does not recreate Grafana folders automatically. Create the target folders in the new instance first, or extend the script to call POST /api/folders before importing.