diff --git a/grafana/dev.dashboards.yaml b/grafana/dev.dashboards.yaml
index 69edf2e1b5dcb..4678222ec9550 100644
--- a/grafana/dev.dashboards.yaml
+++ b/grafana/dev.dashboards.yaml
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+# this file is intended for the docker-compose development environment, more info:
+# http://docs.grafana.org/v5.0/administration/provisioning/#dashboards
+
 apiVersion: 1
 providers:
 - name: 'default'
diff --git a/grafana/dev.datasources.yaml b/grafana/dev.datasources.yaml
index 05f75b45015f1..25d81522f854e 100644
--- a/grafana/dev.datasources.yaml
+++ b/grafana/dev.datasources.yaml
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+# this file is intended for the docker-compose development environment, more info:
+# http://docs.grafana.org/v5.0/administration/provisioning/#datasources
+
 apiVersion: 1
 datasources:
 - name: prometheus
diff --git a/grafana/dev.grafana.ini b/grafana/dev.grafana.ini
index 2e4f61dec0a83..3f641bbeafac7 100644
--- a/grafana/dev.grafana.ini
+++ b/grafana/dev.grafana.ini
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+# this file is intended for the docker-compose development environment
+
 instance_name = conduit-grafana
 
 [auth]