charts/victoria-metrics-k8s-stack: add info about adding external dashboards

charts/victoria-metrics-k8s-stack/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ## Next release
 
-- TODO
+- Add an explicit fail in case both Grafana dashboard via sidecar and `grafana.dashboards` are enabled. Previously, this configuration would be accepted and sidecar configuration would silently override `.grafana.dashboards` configuration. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/helm/victoriametrics-k8s-stack/#adding-external-dashboards) for information about adding external dashboards.
 
 ## 0.27.5
 

charts/victoria-metrics-k8s-stack/README.md

@@ -112,6 +112,37 @@ This chart by default install multiple dashboards and recording rules from [kube
 you can disable dashboards with `defaultDashboardsEnabled: false` and `experimentalDashboardsEnabled: false`
 and rules can be configured under `defaultRules`
 
+### Adding external dashboards
+
+By default, this chart uses sidecar in order to provision default dashboards. If you want to add you own dashboards there are two ways to do it:
+
+- Add dashboards by creating a ConfigMap. An example ConfigMap:
+```yaml
+apiVersion: v1
+kind: ConfigMap
+metadata:
+  labels:
+    grafana_dashboard: "1"
+  name: grafana-dashboard
+data:
+  dashboard.json: |-
+      {...}
+```
+
+- Use init container provisioning. Note that this option requires disabling sidecar and will remove all default dashboards provided with this chart. An example configuration:
+```yaml
+grafana:
+  sidecar:
+    dashboards:
+      enabled: true
+  dashboards:
+    vmcluster:
+      gnetId: 11176
+      revision: 38
+      datasource: VictoriaMetrics
+```
+When using this approach, you can find dashboards for VictoriaMetrics components published [here](https://grafana.com/orgs/victoriametrics).
+
 ### Prometheus scrape configs
 This chart installs multiple scrape configurations for kubernetes monitoring. They are configured under `#ServiceMonitors` section in `values.yaml` file. For example if you want to configure scrape config for `kubelet` you should set it in values.yaml like this:
 ```yaml

charts/victoria-metrics-k8s-stack/README.md.gotmpl

@@ -114,6 +114,37 @@ This chart by default install multiple dashboards and recording rules from [kube
 you can disable dashboards with `defaultDashboardsEnabled: false` and `experimentalDashboardsEnabled: false`
 and rules can be configured under `defaultRules`
 
+### Adding external dashboards
+
+By default, this chart uses sidecar in order to provision default dashboards. If you want to add you own dashboards there are two ways to do it:
+
+- Add dashboards by creating a ConfigMap. An example ConfigMap:
+```yaml
+apiVersion: v1
+kind: ConfigMap
+metadata:
+  labels:
+    grafana_dashboard: "1"
+  name: grafana-dashboard
+data:
+  dashboard.json: |-
+      {...}
+```
+
+- Use init container provisioning. Note that this option requires disabling sidecar and will remove all default dashboards provided with this chart. An example configuration:
+```yaml
+grafana:
+  sidecar:
+    dashboards:
+      enabled: true
+  dashboards:
+    vmcluster:
+      gnetId: 11176
+      revision: 38
+      datasource: VictoriaMetrics
+```
+When using this approach, you can find dashboards for VictoriaMetrics components published [here](https://grafana.com/orgs/victoriametrics).
+
 ### Prometheus scrape configs
 This chart installs multiple scrape configurations for kubernetes monitoring. They are configured under `#ServiceMonitors` section in `values.yaml` file. For example if you want to configure scrape config for `kubelet` you should set it in values.yaml like this:
 ```yaml

charts/victoria-metrics-k8s-stack/templates/grafana/dashboard.yaml

@@ -31,6 +31,11 @@ Delete condition from dashboard
 */}}
 {{- $_ := unset $dashboardData "condition" -}}
 
+{{- if and $.Values.grafana.sidecar.dashboards.enabled $.Values.grafana.dashboards -}}
+{{ fail `It is not possible to use both "grafana.sidecar.dashboards.enabled: true" and "grafana.dashboards" at the same time.
+Disable either sidecar or dashboards configuration. See more details at https://docs.victoriametrics.com/helm/victoriametrics-k8s-stack/#adding-external-dashboards` }}
+{{- end -}}
+
 {{- /*
 Check if dashboard is enabled
 */}}