Legend items do not adhere to the sort order given in the query

[AndreKR]

Take a normal time series graph query with a timestamp, a label and a value:

Timestamp	Label	Value
2025-05-07 00:00:10	b	26
2025-05-07 00:00:10	a	79
2025-05-07 00:00:10	c	85
2025-05-07 00:00:20	b	56
2025-05-07 00:00:20	a	21
2025-05-07 00:00:20	c	27
...	...	...

Here is a query that generates such a result (with timestamps within the last half hour):

SELECT
    now() - INTERVAL 30 MINUTE + INTERVAL ts_idx * 10 SECOND AS timestamp,
    ['b', 'a', 'c'][label_idx + 1] AS label,
    rand() % 100 AS value
FROM
(
    SELECT
        ts_idxs.number AS ts_idx,
        label_idxs.number AS label_idx
    FROM numbers(180) AS ts_idxs
    CROSS JOIN numbers(3) AS label_idxs
)
ORDER BY timestamp

Note that I have intentionally sorted the labels in the order "b", "a", "c".

Despite this, the items in the legend are sorted alphabetically and I haven't found a configuration that would change that:

I would expect the sort order from the query to be retained. That is also the behavior of at least the InfluxDB and the Prometheus data source which I believe both allow sorting in the query.

Environment:

• Grafana version: v11.6.0
• Plugin version: 4.5.1
• OS Grafana is installed on: Ubuntu
• User OS & Browser: Windows, Chrome