What can Panel Desk do without an account?

The whole reader. The dashboard model is parsed in your browser: panels and the panels nested inside collapsed rows, every target expression, template variables and whether each is referenced, literal datasource uids, the 24-column layout grid, embedded credentials and the refresh arithmetic. The exports - the report, the panel inventory CSV, the query audit CSV and the patched dashboard.json - are all free, with no account and no run.

Can a guest run a lane?

No. Running a lane is metered and this app does not sponsor guest runs, so a lane that is not a bundled replay needs a signed-in SkillSafe account. The one exception is a bundled example: a lane marked saved run - free replays a real saved model run at zero cost without signing in.

Which lanes replay free on the bundled examples?

The service overview dashboard ships with a saved run for the Review, Queries and Cost lanes. The imported community dashboard ships with a saved run for the Portable lane. Those four combinations replay in full - checks, findings, the lane block and the reconciliation - without signing in and without spending a credit. Every other combination is a paid run.

Does my dashboard get uploaded?

Not until you run a lane. Everything is read in your browser: the parse, the query audit, the layout, the patcher and every export. When you do run a lane, the model is sent for that one review and nothing about it is stored anywhere except your own SkillSafe account history.

Can Panel Desk fix the dashboard, not only report on it?

For the defects that are unambiguous, yes. The patcher replaces every literal datasource uid with a datasource template variable and adds the variable when it is missing, nulls the root id, strips a sharing wrapper and any snapshot data, deletes legacy per-panel alert objects, renumbers duplicate panel ids, migrates graph panels to timeseries and singlestat to stat, converts bare-string datasource references to the object form, redacts credential-shaped values and sets a fixed timezone back to browser. It lists every change before you download, leaves every ambiguous case alone and says why, and it costs nothing.

How is the query budget computed without running the queries?

From the dashboard's own numbers. The refresh interval and the default time range are parsed out of the model, every target across every panel including the ones nested inside collapsed rows is counted, and queries per minute is that target count times sixty over the refresh seconds. Panels with a repeat set multiply by the variable's option count at render time, so the figure is reported as an unrepeated floor and the repeat multiplier is named separately. It is arithmetic over the declared model, not a measurement of your Grafana.

What are the four lanes?

Review asks whether the board is production-ready - panel purpose, visualization fit, units, reading order and variable design. Queries asks whether each target expression is correct and what it costs, naming the cardinality risk of every group-by. Portable asks whether the export will import cleanly into another environment and hands back the template-variable block to add. Cost asks what the dashboard charges you to keep open and ranks the reductions.

Your Grafana dashboard, read closely before anyone imports it

Paste the dashboard.json. Panel Desk parses the model in your browser first — every panel and every panel nested inside a collapsed row, every target expression, which template variables are actually used, which datasource uids are pinned, what the refresh interval really costs — and then a reviewer works through what is left.

Each example ships with one saved model run: the service overview board replays the Review, Queries and Cost lanes, and the imported board replays Portable. Those replay in full — checks, findings, the lane block and the reconciliation — without signing in and without spending a credit. A lane with a saved run for the board you have loaded is marked saved run — free in the lane bar above; every other lane needs an account, because this app does not sponsor guest runs.

Your exported Grafana dashboard JSON nothing pasted yet

Drag a dashboard.json in, or Everything is read in your browser. Nothing uploads until you run.

Instant read — free, in your browser, no model

Free — no account, no run.

Who opens this board

What matters most this run

What this board is for — optional, and it changes the answer

Result

Lane

Dashboard

Panels

Findings

Blocking

Checks

Check	Status	Note

Findings

Reader reconciliation

Next steps

Take this further

Each button switches lanes, keeps your dashboard, and carries this result's conclusions into the next one.

Raw model reply

The reply did not parse as the structured result, so here it is verbatim.

Your Grafana dashboard, read closely before anyone imports it

Instant read — free, in your browser, no model

Query budget — the cost lane's headline number, computed here for free

Patch this dashboard — free, in your browser, no model

Reserving credits…

Result

Against your previous

Checks

Findings

Blocking before this ships

Target verdicts

Provisioning

Steps, in order

Blockers

The variable block to add

Query budget

Reductions, by impact

Reader reconciliation

Next steps

Take this further

Raw model reply

Your recent runs

How this result was produced