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Apply tags with Azure CLI

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This article describes how to use Azure CLI to tag resources, resource groups, and subscriptions. For tag recommendations and limitations, see Use tags to organize your Azure resources and management hierarchy.

Apply tags

Azure CLI offers two commands to apply tags: az tag create and az tag update. You need to have the Azure CLI 2.10.0 version or later. You can check your version with az version. To update or install it, see Install the Azure CLI.

The az tag create replaces all tags on the resource, resource group, or subscription. When you call the command, pass the resource ID of the entity you want to tag.

The following example applies a set of tags to a storage account:

resource=$(az resource show -g demoGroup -n demostorage --resource-type Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts --query "id" --output tsv)
az tag create --resource-id $resource --tags Dept=Finance Status=Normal

When the command completes, notice that the resource has two tags.

"properties": {
  "tags": {
    "Dept": "Finance",
    "Status": "Normal"
  }
},

If you run the command again, but this time with different tags, notice that the earlier tags disappear.

az tag create --resource-id $resource --tags Team=Compliance Environment=Production

"properties": {
  "tags": {
    "Environment": "Production",
    "Team": "Compliance"
  }
},

To add tags to a resource that already has tags, use az tag update. Set the --operation parameter to Merge.

az tag update --resource-id $resource --operation Merge --tags Dept=Finance Status=Normal

Notice that the existing tags grow with the addition of the two new tags.

"properties": {
  "tags": {
    "Dept": "Finance",
    "Environment": "Production",
    "Status": "Normal",
    "Team": "Compliance"
  }
},

Each tag name can have only one value. If you provide a new value for a tag, the new tag replaces the old value, even if you use the merge operation. The following example changes the Status tag from Normal to Green.

az tag update --resource-id $resource --operation Merge --tags Status=Green

"properties": {
  "tags": {
    "Dept": "Finance",
    "Environment": "Production",
    "Status": "Green",
    "Team": "Compliance"
  }
},

When you set the --operation parameter to Replace, the new set of tags replaces the existing tags.

az tag update --resource-id $resource --operation Replace --tags Project=ECommerce CostCenter=00123 Team=Web

Only the new tags remain on the resource.

"properties": {
  "tags": {
    "CostCenter": "00123",
    "Project": "ECommerce",
    "Team": "Web"
  }
},

The same commands also work with resource groups or subscriptions. Pass them in the identifier of the resource group or subscription you want to tag.

To add a new set of tags to a resource group, use:

group=$(az group show -n demoGroup --query id --output tsv)
az tag create --resource-id $group --tags Dept=Finance Status=Normal

To update the tags for a resource group, use:

az tag update --resource-id $group --operation Merge --tags CostCenter=00123 Environment=Production

To add a new set of tags to a subscription, use:

sub=$(az account show --subscription "Demo Subscription" --query id --output tsv)
az tag create --resource-id /subscriptions/$sub --tags CostCenter=00123 Environment=Dev

To update the tags for a subscription, use:

az tag update --resource-id /subscriptions/$sub --operation Merge --tags Team="Web Apps"

List tags

To get the tags for a resource, resource group, or subscription, use the az tag list command and pass the resource ID of the entity.

To see the tags for a resource, use:

resource=$(az resource show -g demoGroup -n demostorage --resource-type Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts --query "id" --output tsv)
az tag list --resource-id $resource

To see the tags for a resource group, use:

group=$(az group show -n demoGroup --query id --output tsv)
az tag list --resource-id $group

To see the tags for a subscription, use:

sub=$(az account show --subscription "Demo Subscription" --query id --output tsv)
az tag list --resource-id /subscriptions/$sub

List by tag

To get resources that have a specific tag name and value, use:

az resource list --tag CostCenter=00123 --query [].name

To get resources that have a specific tag name with any tag value, use:

az resource list --tag Team --query [].name

To get resource groups that have a specific tag name and value, use:

az group list --tag Dept=Finance

Remove tags

To remove specific tags, use az tag update and set --operation to Delete. Pass the resource ID of the tags you want to delete.

az tag update --resource-id $resource --operation Delete --tags Project=ECommerce Team=Web

You've removed the specified tags.

"properties": {
  "tags": {
    "CostCenter": "00123"
  }
},

To remove all tags, use the az tag delete command.

az tag delete --resource-id $resource

Handling spaces

If your tag names or values include spaces, enclose them in quotation marks.

az tag update --resource-id $group --operation Merge --tags "Cost Center"=Finance-1222 Location="West US"

Next steps