Add the Grafana MCP server to Windsurf

Prerequisites

• Windsurf installed.
• GRAFANA_URL — URL of your Grafana instance, e.g. https://myinstance.grafana.net or http://localhost:3000.
• GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN — Grafana service account token used to authenticate (Grafana 9.0+).

Setup

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grafana": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--rm",
        "-i",
        "-e",
        "GRAFANA_URL",
        "-e",
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN",
        "grafana/mcp-grafana",
        "-t",
        "stdio"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL": "<GRAFANA_URL>",
        "GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN": "<GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Gotchas

Windsurf's Cascade reads MCP servers from an "mcpServers" object in ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json. Unlike most clients, remote servers are configured with the "serverUrl" field rather than "url", so a config that uses "url" silently fails to connect. Native remote transport is supported without an OAuth flow.