Deploy Dynatrace Dashboards and Alerts with Monaco CLI

Problem: Configuration Drift in Dynatrace

Creating dashboards, alerting profiles, and management zones manually in the Dynatrace UI causes drift between environments and leaves no audit trail. Monaco, Dynatrace's official CLI for Monitoring as Code, lets you define these resources in YAML, store them in Git, and deploy them consistently.

Prerequisites

• Dynatrace environment (SaaS or Managed) with network access to its API endpoint.
• API token with ReadConfig and WriteConfig scopes. Store it in a secret manager or environment variable—never commit it.
• Monaco CLI installed on your workstation or CI runner. Verify compatibility with your Dynatrace version (see release notes).
• Git repository for version control.

Project Structure

Organize configurations in a project directory with a manifest.yaml that maps environments to local folders.

manifest.yaml

name: production-monitoring
environments:
  - name: prod
    url: https://{your-environment-id}.live.dynatrace.com
    token: ${DYNATRACE_API_TOKEN}
projects:
  dashboards: ./configs/dashboards
  alerting-profiles: ./configs/alerts
  management-zones: ./configs/zones

Each project folder contains YAML files for individual resources.

Example: Alerting Profile (configs/alerts/high-severity.yaml)

name: High-Severity-Alerts
qualities:
  - severity: ERROR
  - severity: CRITICAL
  - severity: WARNING

Example: Management Zone (configs/zones/frontend.yaml)

name: Frontend-Services
rules:
  - type: SERVICE
    enabled: true
    propagation: SERVICE_TO_PROCESS_GROUP_LIKE
    conditions:
      - key: 
          attribute: SERVICE_TAG
        comparisonInfo:
          type: TAG
          operator: TAG_KEY_EQUALS
          value:
            key: tier
            value: frontend

Example: Dashboard (configs/dashboards/overview.yaml)

name: System-Overview
tiles:
  - name: CPU Usage
    query: builtin:host.cpu.usage
    visualization: GRAPH_CHART
  - name: Error Rate
    query: builtin:service.errors.total.count
    visualization: SINGLE_VALUE

Deployment Workflow

1. Set the token in your shell (Linux/macOS) or CI secret:

   export DYNATRACE_API_TOKEN='dt0c01.xxx'

2. Run a dry-run to preview changes without modifying the environment:

   monaco deploy --dry-run

   Review the output: it lists resources to be created, updated, or deleted. Confirm counts match your YAML files.

3. Deploy when the dry-run looks correct:

   monaco deploy

   The CLI applies changes and reports success or failure per resource.

Validation Checks

• CLI output: Verify created and updated counts equal the number of files you intended to change.
• UI verification: Log into Dynatrace, open Dashboards, Alerting profiles, and Management zones. Confirm each resource appears with the expected name and configuration.
• State comparison: Export the live configuration and diff against source:

  monaco generate --output ./live-state
  diff -r ./configs ./live-state

  No differences means the deployment matches source exactly.

Recovery and Rollback

If a deployment breaks alerting or removes a management zone that silences notifications:

1. Revert the Git commit to the last known good state.
2. Run monaco deploy again to reapply the previous configuration.
3. If you must remove resources entirely, use monaco delete --project <project-name>. Caution: Deleting a management zone or alerting profile immediately stops associated notifications. Verify no critical alerts depend on them before deletion.

Limitations

• Monaco covers dashboards, alerting profiles, management zones, and several other types. Advanced entities like SLOs or custom metrics may require newer CLI versions or direct API calls.
• API token must have ReadConfig and WriteConfig; additional scopes (e.g., DataFeeds) are needed for some resource types.
• Always test in a non-production environment first. The --dry-run flag is your primary safety net.

Quick Verification Checklist

Step	Command / Action	Expected Result
Dry-run	monaco deploy --dry-run	No errors; create/update/delete counts match plan
Deploy	monaco deploy	All resources report SUCCESS
UI check	Open Dynatrace UI	Resources visible with correct settings
State diff	monaco generate + diff	Zero differences