datasource export

Purpose

Export live Grafana datasource inventory as normalized JSON plus provisioning files.

When to use

Use this when you need a local datasource bundle for later inspection, diff, or import.

Key flags

• --output-dir: target directory for the export tree.
• --org-id: export one explicit Grafana org.
• --all-orgs: export each visible org into per-org subdirectories. Requires Basic auth.
• --overwrite: replace existing files.
• --without-datasource-provisioning: skip the provisioning variant.
• --dry-run: preview what would be written.

Examples

# Purpose: Export live Grafana datasource inventory as normalized JSON plus provisioning files.
grafana-util datasource export --url http://localhost:3000 --basic-user admin --basic-password admin --output-dir ./datasources --overwrite

# Purpose: Export live Grafana datasource inventory as normalized JSON plus provisioning files.
grafana-util datasource export --url http://localhost:3000 --basic-user admin --basic-password admin --all-orgs --output-dir ./datasources --overwrite

Before / After

• Before: live datasource state was easy to lose because the export shape was not normalized or easy to reuse later.
• After: one export gives you a local bundle that is stable enough for inspection, diff, and import.

What success looks like

• the export tree is complete enough to inspect later without Grafana
• normalized JSON and provisioning files stay aligned with the source inventory
• the bundle is ready for diff or import without extra hand cleanup

Failure checks

• if the export tree is missing org data, confirm the org scope and whether the credentials can see it
• if --all-orgs fails, use Basic auth and verify that the account can see each target org
• if the bundle looks stale, verify the export directory and whether --overwrite was used intentionally

Related commands

• datasource list
• datasource import
• datasource diff