Sending Data to Grafana Cloud

Docs: https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/

Quick Start: Find Your Credentials

In Grafana Cloud portal → My Account → Stack → Details:

Alloy (Recommended — All Signals)

// METRICS
prometheus.scrape "app" {
  targets    = [{"__address__" = "localhost:8080"}]
  forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.cloud.receiver]
}

prometheus.remote_write "cloud" {
  endpoint {
    url = "https://prometheus-prod-xx.grafana.net/api/prom/push"
    basic_auth {
      username = sys.env("PROM_USER")
      password = sys.env("GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY")
    }
  }
}

// LOGS
loki.source.file "app" {
  targets = [{__path__ = "/var/log/app/*.log", job = "app"}]
  forward_to = [loki.write.cloud.receiver]
}

loki.write "cloud" {
  endpoint {
    url = "https://logs-prod-xx.grafana.net/loki/api/v1/push"
    basic_auth {
      username = sys.env("LOKI_USER")
      password = sys.env("GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY")
    }
  }
}

// TRACES (OTLP receive → forward)
otelcol.receiver.otlp "default" {
  grpc { endpoint = "0.0.0.0:4317" }
  http { endpoint = "0.0.0.0:4318" }
  output {
    traces = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.cloud.input]
  }
}

otelcol.exporter.otlp "cloud" {
  client {
    endpoint = "tempo-prod-xx.grafana.net:443"
    auth = otelcol.auth.basic.cloud.handler
  }
}

otelcol.auth.basic "cloud" {
  username = sys.env("TEMPO_USER")
  password = sys.env("GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY")
}

Direct Prometheus Remote Write

# prometheus.yml
remote_write:
  - url: https://prometheus-prod-xx.grafana.net/api/prom/push
    basic_auth:
      username: "123456"
      password: "your-api-key"
    write_relabel_configs:
      - source_labels: [__name__]
        regex: "go_.*"
        action: drop   # optional: drop high-cardinality metrics

Direct Loki Push (curl)

curl -X POST https://logs-prod-xx.grafana.net/loki/api/v1/push \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -u "123456:your-api-key" \
  -d '{
    "streams": [{
      "stream": { "app": "myapp", "env": "prod" },
      "values": [
        ["1706745600000000000", "application started"]
      ]
    }]
  }'

OpenTelemetry SDK → Grafana Cloud

# Environment variables for OTLP export
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="https://otlp-gateway-prod-xx.grafana.net/otlp"
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="Authorization=Basic $(echo -n '123456:your-api-key' | base64)"
export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME="my-service"

Python example:

from opentelemetry import trace
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http.trace_exporter import OTLPSpanExporter
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import BatchSpanProcessor

provider = TracerProvider()
exporter = OTLPSpanExporter()  # reads OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_* env vars
provider.add_span_processor(BatchSpanProcessor(exporter))
trace.set_tracer_provider(provider)

Cloud Integrations

Pre-built integrations for common infrastructure (install from Grafana Cloud UI or API):

# List available integrations
curl https://integrations-api-prod.grafana.net/api/v1/integrations \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <api-key>"

# Install AWS CloudWatch integration
curl -X POST https://integrations-api-prod.grafana.net/api/v1/integrations/cloudwatch \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <api-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "aws-prod", "config": {...}}'

Popular integrations: AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, GCP, Kubernetes, Docker, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Nginx, Apache, JVM, Node.js, Python, .NET.

Kubernetes Agent Operator

# values.yaml for grafana/k8s-monitoring Helm chart
cluster:
  name: production

externalServices:
  prometheus:
    host: https://prometheus-prod-xx.grafana.net
    basicAuth:
      username: "123456"
      password:
        secretName: grafana-cloud-secret
        secretKey: api-key

  loki:
    host: https://logs-prod-xx.grafana.net
    basicAuth:
      username: "234567"
      password:
        secretName: grafana-cloud-secret
        secretKey: api-key

metrics:
  enabled: true
  podMonitors:
    enabled: true
  serviceMonitors:
    enabled: true

logs:
  pod_logs:
    enabled: true

traces:
  enabled: true

helm install k8s-monitoring grafana/k8s-monitoring \
  --version 4.1.4 \
  -n monitoring --create-namespace \
  -f values.yaml

API Key Management

# Create API key via Grafana API
curl -X POST https://yourstack.grafana.net/api/auth/keys \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -u "admin:adminpassword" \
  -d '{"name": "alloy-writer", "role": "MetricsPublisher", "secondsToLive": 0}'

Roles for data ingestion: MetricsPublisher, LogsPublisher, TracesPublisher, ProfilesPublisher