# Building Dashboards

Designs and builds Axiom dashboards via API.

- Repository: https://github.com/openclaw/clawhub (9543 stars)
- Category: Design
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-11-01
- Runs scripts: yes, review before use

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add openclaw/clawhub --skill building-dashboards -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add openclaw/clawhub --skill building-dashboards -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add openclaw/clawhub --skill building-dashboards -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add openclaw/clawhub --skill building-dashboards -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Designs and builds Axiom dashboards via API. Covers chart types, APL and metrics/MPL query patterns, SmartFilters, layout, and configuration options. Use when creating dashboards, migrating from Splunk, or configuring chart options.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Building Dashboards

## Philosophy

1. **Decisions first.** Every panel answers a question that leads to an action.
2. **Overview → drilldown → evidence.** Start broad, narrow on click/filter, end with raw logs.
3. **Rates and percentiles over averages.** Averages hide problems; p95/p99 expose them.
4. **Simple beats dense.** One question per panel. No chart junk.
5. **Validate with data.** Never guess fields, discover schema first.
6. **Compute what's asked, or defer.** If a panel can't be computed, replace it with a `Note` documenting the blocker. Never substitute a different quantity, even disclosed. See [Compute or Defer](#compute-or-defer).

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## Entry Points

| Starting from | Workflow |
|---------------|----------|
| **Vague description** | Intake → check dataset kind → design blueprint (APL or MPL) → queries per panel → deploy |
| **Template** | Pick template → customize dataset/service/env → deploy |
| **Splunk dashboard** | Extract SPL → translate via spl-to-apl → map to chart types → deploy |
| **Grafana dashboard** | Project canonical panel spec (`expr`, `legendFormat`, `unit`, `title`, `description`) → translate PromQL → map chart types → deploy. See [reference/grafana-migration.md](./reference/grafana-migration.md). |
| **Exploration** | Use axiom-sre to discover schema/signals → productize into panels |

---

## Intake: What to Ask First

1. **Audience & decision**
   - Oncall triage? (fast refresh, error-focused)
   - Team health? (daily trends, SLO tracking)
   - Exec reporting? (weekly summaries, high-level)

2. **Scope**
   - Service, environment, region, cluster, endpoint?
   - Single service or cross-service view?

3. **Dataset kind.** Run `scripts/metrics/datasets <deploy>` and check `kind`.
   - `otel:metrics:v1` → metrics dataset, follow the **Metrics path**.
   - anything else → events/logs dataset, follow the **APL path**.

   > **Never run `getschema` on a metrics dataset.** It returns 0 rows without error.

The rest: https://github.com/openclaw/clawhub/blob/HEAD/.agents/skills/building-dashboards/SKILL.md