Sync Dashboards

You maintain the consistency between the MegaLinter observability payload and the provider dashboards.

The contract

• Producer: megalinter/reporters/ApiReporter.py builds the v2 payload (run-level KPIs incl. qualityGateStatus and the 0-100 healthScore, per-linter records, SARIF-derived rulesBreakdown/filesBreakdown); megalinter/api_providers/ApiProvider.py defines the metric fields (run_metric_fields, linter_metric_fields) and each ApiProvider* subclass maps them to its backend (Prometheus/Loki, Datadog, Elastic, New Relic).
• Contract file: .automation/dashboard_builders/contract.py lists the same fields, labels (base + run-level megalinterVersion/megalinterFlavor), record types and metric name prefixes.
• Consumers: the DashboardBuilder* classes in .automation/dashboard_builders/ generate docs/dashboards/ (Grafana JSON, Datadog JSON, New Relic JSON, Kibana ndjson + manifest.json).

Dashboard design invariants (keep them when editing)

• Fleet-to-detail navigation: Grafana org table/charts carry data links to the Repository dashboard (var-repo), which links to Linter Detail (var-linter); Datadog uses the git_repo_name/git_branch_name template variables + __SELF_URL__ custom links (substituted by the uploader); New Relic has Repository/Branch NRQL variables, a "Repository detail" page and facet links (__REPOSITORY_DETAIL_PAGE_GUID__, substituted by the uploader's second pass); Kibana relies on native click-to-filter.
• Branch filtering must stay available on every platform (Grafana $branch, Datadog $git_branch_name, New Relic {{gitBranchName}} with % default, Kibana filter bar).
• Rating drill-down: every rating (A-E) tile leads to a "Why this rating?" explanation — Grafana dedicated dashboard (uid megalinter-rating, linked from the rating stats), New Relic dedicated page (facet-linkable via the __RATING_PAGE_GUID__ marker), Datadog group widget, Elastic markdown + breakdown panels. It must always show: the formula, linters success/warning/error counts, and the linters dragging the score down.
• Derived KPIs: the A-E rating is a dashboard-side range mapping of healthScore (A>=90, B>=80, C>=65, D>=50, else E); "time saved" is totalErrorsFixed * 5 minutes — keep formulas consistent across providers and documented in docs/observability.md.
• Agnostic dashboards: no account ids, datasource uids, or instance URLs hardcoded in generated files — placeholders are resolved by mega-linter-runner/lib/upload-dashboards.js at upload time so anyone can provision them on their own account.
• Value-conditional styling: KPIs are colored by value on every platform — Grafana thresholds/background stat tiles/color-background table cells/threshold-zone areas, Datadog conditional_formats + semantic timeseries palettes (warm=errors, cool=health, purple=duration), New Relic billboard thresholds + fixed series colors (Blocking=red, Non-blocking=yellow), Kibana Lens custom palettes on metric panels. Keep the semantics: green=good, yellow=warning, red=blocking, blue=neutral/informative.
• Cardinality: runId, jobUrl, rule ids and file paths never become metric tags or Loki stream labels.

Process

1. Identify what changed (new/renamed/removed payload field, label, record type, or a dashboard improvement request).
2. Apply the change consistently:
   • Payload change → update contract.py AND the relevant DashboardBuilder* panels/queries.
   • Dashboard-only change → update the DashboardBuilder* class (never edit docs/dashboards/* directly — they are generated).
3. Regenerate: python .automation/build_dashboards.py (use the repo venv).
4. Verify sync: python .automation/build_dashboards.py --check must pass, and megalinter/tests/test_megalinter/api_reporter_v2_test.py must still pass (pytest megalinter/tests/test_megalinter/api_reporter_v2_test.py).
5. If credentials are available in .env (GRAFANA_HOST/GRAFANA_TOKEN, DD_TOKEN, ELASTIC_HOST/ELASTIC_API_KEY, NEW_RELIC_HOST/NEW_RELIC_API_KEY), offer to upload the regenerated dashboards to the live instances with node mega-linter-runner/lib/index.js --upload-dashboards <provider> (set MEGALINTER_DASHBOARDS_DIR to the local docs/dashboards folder) and verify with provider queries that the dashboards' metrics/fields return data.
   • The uploader expects different variable names than .env uses — map them: GRAFANA_URL=$GRAFANA_HOST, DD_BEARER_TOKEN=$DD_TOKEN + DD_SITE=datadoghq.eu (the token is an EU-site bearer token; the default site 401s), KIBANA_URL=$ELASTIC_HOST, NEW_RELIC_REGION=EU + NEW_RELIC_ACCOUNT_ID (resolve it via NerdGraph { actor { accounts { id } } } on api.eu.newrelic.com — take the non-storage account).
   • To query Elastic data directly, derive the Elasticsearch endpoint from the Kibana host (.kb. → .es., strip trailing slash); the Kibana console proxy is disabled (404).
   • After a New Relic upload, verify the facet links: fetch the dashboard entity's pages + widgets linkedEntities via NerdGraph and check every linked guid is one of the entity's current page guids (the second-pass update must send page.guid values or NerdGraph recreates pages and the links go stale).
6. Update the documentation if the metrics reference changed: docs/observability.md and docs/observability/<provider>.md.

Rules

• Payload/metric renames are breaking changes: mention them in CHANGELOG.md (beta section) with a migration note.
• Keep metric label cardinality low: runId, jobUrl, rule ids and file paths never become metric tags or Loki stream labels — they belong in log lines/documents.
• Datadog tag keys are snake_case (git_repo_name, linter_key, record_type); everywhere else camelCase.