Developing Grafana Plugins with React and TypeScript: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction to Grafana and Plugin Development

Grafana, the popular visualization and monitoring tool, has evolved significantly over the years, especially with its transition from AngularJS to React. This shift opens up new avenues for developers to create powerful and flexible plugins using modern technologies like React and TypeScript. In this article, we’ll delve into the world of developing Grafana plugins using React and TypeScript, providing you with a comprehensive guide, complete with code examples and step-by-step instructions.

Setting Up Your Environment

Before you start developing your plugin, ensure you have the necessary tools and environment set up.

Installing Grafana

First, you need to have Grafana installed. You can download and install it from the official Grafana website or use a package manager like Docker.

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --name grafana grafana/grafana

Setting Up Your Plugin Project

To start developing a plugin, you can use the grafana-toolkit which simplifies the process of creating, building, and testing your plugins.

npm install -g @grafana/toolkit
grafana-toolkit plugin:create my-react-plugin
cd my-react-plugin

Project Structure

A typical Grafana plugin project using React and TypeScript will have the following structure:

my-react-plugin/
├── src/
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── MyPanel.tsx
│   │   ├── MyPanelEditor.tsx
│   ├── types/
│   │   ├── defaults.ts
│   │   ├── MyPanelOptions.ts
│   ├── module.tsx
│   ├── plugin.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── package.json
└── README.md

plugin.json

This file contains metadata about your plugin, such as its name, ID, and type.

{
  "type": "panel",
  "name": "My React Plugin",
  "id": "my-react-plugin",
  "info": {
    "author": {
      "name": "Maxim Zhirnov",
      "url": "https://example.com"
    },
    "description": "A React-based plugin for Grafana",
    "version": "1.0.0"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "grafana": ">=8.0.0"
  },
  "includes": ["css/style.css"],
  "module": "module",
  "partials": ["partials/template.html"]
}

module.tsx

This is the main entry point of your plugin where you define your React components and configure the plugin.

import { PanelPlugin } from '@grafana/ui';
import { MyPanel } from './components/MyPanel';
import { MyPanelEditor } from './components/MyPanelEditor';
import { defaults, MyPanelOptions } from './types';

export const myReactPanel = new PanelPlugin<MyPanelOptions>(MyPanel);
myReactPanel.setEditor(MyPanelEditor);
myReactPanel.setDefaults(defaults);

MyPanel.tsx and MyPanelEditor.tsx

These files contain your React components for the panel and its editor.

// MyPanel.tsx
import React from 'react';
import { PanelProps } from '@grafana/ui';

interface MyPanelOptions {
  someText: string;
}

export class MyPanel extends React.PureComponent<PanelProps<MyPanelOptions>> {
  render() {
    const { options } = this.props;
    return (
      <div>
        Text from editor: {options.someText}
      </div>
    );
  }
}

// MyPanelEditor.tsx
import React from 'react';
import { EditorProps } from '@grafana/ui';

export class MyPanelEditor extends React.PureComponent<EditorProps<MyPanelOptions>> {
  render() {
    const { options, onOptionsChange } = this.props;
    return (
      <div>
        <input
          type="text"
          value={options.someText}
          onChange={(e) => onOptionsChange({ ...options, someText: e.target.value })}
        />
      </div>
    );
  }
}

Building and Running Your Plugin

To build and run your plugin, you can use the commands provided by grafana-toolkit.

grafana-toolkit plugin:build
grafana-toolkit plugin:dev

The plugin:dev command will start a development server that watches for changes and rebuilds your plugin automatically.

Using TypeScript

TypeScript is highly recommended for developing Grafana plugins due to its type safety and maintainability benefits. Here’s how you can configure TypeScript for your project:

tsconfig.json

This file configures the TypeScript compiler.

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "outDir": "dist",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "noImplicitAny": true,
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true,
    "target": "es5"
  }
}

Adding TypeScript Dependencies

Ensure you have the necessary TypeScript dependencies installed.

npm install --save-dev typescript @types/react @types/webpack

Testing Your Plugin

Testing is an essential part of plugin development. You can use Jest for unit testing and integration testing.

Setting Up Jest

Install Jest and the required dependencies.

npm install --save-dev jest @types/jest

Create a jest.config.js file to configure Jest.

module.exports = {
  preset: 'ts-jest',
  collectCoverage: true,
  coverageReporters: ['json', 'text', 'lcov', 'clover'],
};

Writing Tests

Here’s an example of how you might write a test for your MyPanel component.

// tests/MyPanel.test.tsx
import React from 'react';
import { render } from '@testing-library/react';
import { MyPanel } from '../src/components/MyPanel';

describe('MyPanel', () => {
  it('renders correctly', () => {
    const { getByText } = render(<MyPanel options={{ someText: 'Hello World' }} />);
    expect(getByText('Hello World')).toBeInTheDocument();
  });
});

Conclusion

Developing plugins for Grafana using React and TypeScript offers a powerful and flexible way to extend the capabilities of this popular monitoring tool. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can create robust, maintainable, and highly customizable plugins.

Flowchart: Developing a Grafana Plugin

This flowchart summarizes the key steps involved in developing a Grafana plugin using React and TypeScript.

By leveraging the power of React and TypeScript, you can create plugins that are not only visually appealing but also robust and maintainable. Happy coding