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+# Agent Dashboards
+
+Because Netdata is a health monitoring and _performance troubleshooting_ system,
+we put a lot of emphasis on real-time, meaningful, and context-aware charts.
+
+We bundle Netdata with a dashboard and hundreds of charts, designed by both our
+team and the community, but you can also customize them yourself.
+
+There are two primary ways to view Netdata's dashboards on the agent:
+
+1. The [local Agent dashboard](/src/web/gui/README.md) that comes pre-configured with every Netdata installation. You can
+ see it at `http://NODE:19999`, replacing `NODE` with `localhost`, the hostname of your node, or its IP address. You
+ can customize the contents and colors of the standard dashboard [using
+ JavaScript](/src/web/gui/README.md#customizing-the-local-dashboard).
+
+2. The [`dashboard.js` JavaScript library](#dashboardjs), which helps you
+ [customize the standard dashboards](/src/web/gui/README.md#customizing-the-local-dashboard)
+ using JavaScript, or create entirely new [custom dashboards](/src/web/gui/custom/README.md)
+You can also view all the data Netdata collects through the [REST API v1](/src/web/api/README.md#netdata-rest-api).
+
+## dashboard.js
+
+Netdata uses the `dashboards.js` file to define, configure, create, and update
+all the charts and other visualizations that appear on any Netdata dashboard.
+You need to put `dashboard.js` on any HTML page that's going to render Netdata
+charts.
+
+The [custom dashboards documentation](/src/web/gui/custom/README.md) contains examples of such
+custom HTML pages.
+
+### Generating dashboard.js
+
+We build the `dashboards.js` file by concatenating all the source files located
+in the `web/gui/src/dashboard.js/` directory. That's done using the provided
+build script:
+
+```sh
+cd web/gui
+make
+```
+
+If you make any changes to the `src` directory when developing Netdata, you
+should regenerate the `dashboard.js` file before you commit to the Netdata
+repository.