From grafana 3.0 it's very easy to develop your own plugins and share them with other grafana users.
You can extend Grafana by writing your own plugins and then share then with other users in [our plugin repository](https://grafana.com/plugins).
There are two blog posts about authoring a plugin that might also be of interest to any plugin authors, [Timing is Everything. Writing the Clock Panel Plugin for Grafana 3.0- part 1](https://grafana.com/blog/2016/04/08/timing-is-everything.-writing-the-clock-panel-plugin-for-grafana-3.0/) and [Timing is Everything. Editor Mode in Grafana 3.0 for the Clock Panel Plugin](https://grafana.com/blog/2016/04/15/timing-is-everything.-editor-mode-in-grafana-3.0-for-the-clock-panel-plugin/).
2. Clone an example plugin into ```/var/lib/grafana/plugins``` or `data/plugins` (relative to grafana git repo if you're running development version from source dir)
2. Clone an example plugin into ```/var/lib/grafana/plugins``` or `data/plugins` (relative to grafana git repo if you're running development version from source dir)
3. Code away!
3. You one of our example plugins as starting point
Example plugins
-[Typescript data source example](https://github.com/grafana/typescript-template-datasource)
-[Simple json data source](https://github.com/grafana/simple-json-datasource)
There are two blog posts about authoring a plugin that might also be of interest to any plugin authors.
-[Timing is Everything. Writing the Clock Panel Plugin for Grafana](https://grafana.com/blog/2016/04/08/timing-is-everything.-writing-the-clock-panel-plugin-for-grafana-3.0/)
-[Timing is Everything. Editor Mode in Grafana for the Clock Panel Plugin](https://grafana.com/blog/2016/04/15/timing-is-everything.-editor-mode-in-grafana-3.0-for-the-clock-panel-plugin/).
## What languages?
## What languages?
Since everything turns into javascript it's up to you to choose which language you want. That said it's probably a good idea to choose es6 or typescript since we use es6 classes in Grafana. So it's easier to get inspiration from the Grafana repo is you choose one of those languages.
Since everything turns into javascript it's up to you to choose which language you want. That said it's probably a good idea to choose es6 or typescript since
we use es6 classes in Grafana. So it's easier to get inspiration from the Grafana repo is you choose one of those languages.
## Buildscript
## Buildscript
You can use any build system you like that support systemjs. All the built content should end up in a folder named ```dist``` and committed to the repository.By committing the dist folder the person who installs your plugin does not have to run any buildscript.
You can use any build system you like that support systemjs. All the built content should end up in a folder named ```dist``` and committed to the repository.
By committing the dist folder the person who installs your plugin does not have to run any buildscript.
All our example plugins have build scripted configured.
All our example plugins have build scripted configured.
## Keep your plugin up to date
New versions of Grafana can sometimes cause plugins to break. Checkout our [PLUGIN_DEV.md](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/master/PLUGIN_DEV.md) doc for changes in
Grafana that can impact your plugin.
## Metadata
## Metadata
See the [coding styleguide]({{<relref"code-styleguide.md">}}) for details on the metadata.
See the [coding styleguide]({{<relref"code-styleguide.md">}}) for details on the metadata.
