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DATA ENGINEERING SERIES

Visualize Data with Grafana MCP

Build interactive dashboards by chatting with your IDE

Start Building
Visualize Data with Grafana MCP project preview
Grafana
Cursor

Difficulty

Beginner

Time to complete

90 minutes

Availability

Pro

BUILD

What you'll build

Create production-ready Grafana dashboards with KPIs, bar charts, and time series visualizations, all through natural language in Cursor. Connect to PostgreSQL and build monitoring solutions used by companies like Airbnb and Netflix.

1. Configure Grafana MCP via chat

Set up a Grafana container in Docker and connect Cursor with an API token. Enable AI-powered dashboard creation so you can build visualizations through natural language

2. Connect Grafana to PostgreSQL

Create a data source so Grafana knows where to pull metrics from. Configure connection settings and test that your e-commerce data is accessible for visualization

3. Build complete dashboard with one prompt

Create 6 panels at once with a single prompt. Stat panels for KPIs, bar charts for breakdowns, and auto-refresh settings. Watch Cursor orchestrate the entire dashboard build

4. Add time series for trends

Visualize revenue over time with line charts. Aggregate daily data into monthly insights that reveal growth patterns and seasonal trends at a glance

Your portfolio builds as you work.

Every project documents itself as you go. Finish the work, and your proof is ready to share.

PROJECT

Real world application

Skills you'll learn

  • Grafana Dashboards

    Build interactive visualizations that update in real-time

  • SQL Analytics

    Write queries for KPIs, aggregations, and time-based trends

  • Data Visualization

    Stat panels, bar charts, and time series for any metric

  • MCP Integration

    Control Grafana through natural language in your IDE

  • Data Sources

    Connect databases to visualization platforms seamlessly

  • Production Monitoring

    Real-time dashboard patterns used by data teams worldwide

Tech stack

  • Grafana logo

    Grafana

    Open-source analytics and visualization platform for any data source

  • Cursor logo

    Cursor

    The AI-powered IDE that orchestrates dashboard creation through chat

To be honest if I had found your site a year ago I would be an Engineer by now!

Lucas Swain

NextWork Student

OUTCOME

Where this leads.

Relevant Jobs

Roles where these skills matter:

  • Data Engineer
  • Analytics Engineer
  • BI Developer
  • Data Analyst
  • Platform Engineer

Data Engineering with MCPs

Continue your data engineering journey. Build pipelines, transform data, and create production monitoring systems

Data Engineering with MCPs

Continue the Journey

FAQs

Everything you need to know

No prior Grafana experience required. This project teaches you dashboard concepts as you build. You will create real visualizations, but Cursor and the MCP help translate your plain English into working Grafana configurations. By the end, you will understand how production data teams build monitoring dashboards.

SQL lets you query data and see results as text tables (rows and columns of numbers). Grafana takes those same SQL queries and turns the results into visual charts like bar graphs, line charts, and stat panels with big numbers. SQL is great for analysis, but Grafana is built for monitoring: dashboards that update automatically, metrics that stand out visually, and alerts when something goes wrong.

Most learners complete this project in 60-90 minutes. The project has 3 main steps: configuring Grafana and MCP servers (25 minutes), creating the PostgreSQL data source (10 minutes), and building your e-commerce dashboard with multiple panels (25 minutes). The Secret Mission (DBT pipeline visualization) adds another 20-30 minutes. You can work at your own pace.

You need Docker Desktop installed and running, plus Cursor IDE. If you completed the PostgreSQL MCP project (Part 1), you already have everything set up. If not, the project includes a 15-minute fast-track setup that installs Docker, PostgreSQL, and loads demo data. No credit card or payment required, everything uses free tiers.

Yes! That is the whole point. You will own all the dashboards you create. The visualizations are production-ready and demonstrate real data engineering skills. Many students showcase data visualization projects like this in interviews. Companies love seeing candidates who can turn raw data into actionable insights.

One Project. Real Skills.

90 minutes from now, you'll have completed Visualize Data with Grafana MCP. No prior experience needed. Just step-by-step guidance and a real project for your portfolio.

Let's Build This

Beginner-friendly