Zero to Dashboard with Grafana Assistant and the Infinity datasource plugin

What if you didn’t have to write a single query to get a useful dashboard?

In this short video, I go from nothing to a working dashboard in a few minutes — no queries — using Grafana Assistant and the Infinity datasource plugin. The data I’m visualising is the RAWG video game database API, so I end up with a dashboard that helps me decide what to play next.

Why Infinity is fun here

Most Grafana data sources are scoped to a specific kind of backend — Prometheus, Loki, a SQL database. Infinity is different: it lets you treat any REST/JSON/CSV/HTML endpoint as a data source. That means anything with an API can become a dashboard, which is exactly the right shape for goofing around with a games API on a Friday afternoon.

Pair Infinity with Assistant and you don’t even have to know what queries to write — Assistant configures the data source, asks the API the right questions, and builds the panels for you.

Timestamps

  • 00:00 — Intro
  • 00:35 — The RAWG video game database
  • 01:01 — Setting up the Infinity datasource
  • 05:10 — Customising the dashboard with Assistant
  • 09:31 — Closing thoughts

Resources

See Also