Apply tags with Bicep
This article describes how to use Bicep to tag resources, resource groups, and subscriptions during deployment. For tag recommendations and limitations, see Use tags to organize your Azure resources and management hierarchy.
Note
The tags you apply through a Bicep file overwrite any existing tags.
Apply values
The following example deploys a storage account with three tags. Two of the tags (Dept
and Environment
) are set to literal values. One tag (LastDeployed
) is set to a parameter that defaults to the current date.
param location string = resourceGroup().location
param utcShort string = utcNow('d')
resource stgAccount 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts@2021-04-01' = {
name: 'storage${uniqueString(resourceGroup().id)}'
location: location
sku: {
name: 'Standard_LRS'
}
kind: 'Storage'
tags: {
Dept: 'Finance'
Environment: 'Production'
LastDeployed: utcShort
}
}
Apply an object
You can define an object parameter that stores several tags and apply that object to the tag element. This approach provides more flexibility than the previous example because the object can have different properties. Each property in the object becomes a separate tag for the resource. The following example has a parameter named tagValues
that's applied to the tag element.
param location string = resourceGroup().location
param tagValues object = {
Dept: 'Finance'
Environment: 'Production'
}
resource stgAccount 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts@2021-04-01' = {
name: 'storage${uniqueString(resourceGroup().id)}'
location: location
sku: {
name: 'Standard_LRS'
}
kind: 'Storage'
tags: tagValues
}
Apply a JSON string
To store many values in a single tag, apply a JSON string that represents the values. The entire JSON string is stored as one tag that can't exceed 256 characters. The following example has a single tag named CostCenter
that contains several values from a JSON string:
param location string = resourceGroup().location
resource stgAccount 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts@2021-04-01' = {
name: 'storage${uniqueString(resourceGroup().id)}'
location: location
sku: {
name: 'Standard_LRS'
}
kind: 'Storage'
tags: {
CostCenter: '{"Dept":"Finance","Environment":"Production"}'
}
}
Apply tags from resource group
To apply tags from a resource group to a resource, use the resourceGroup() function. When you get the tag value, use the tags[tag-name]
syntax instead of the tags.tag-name
syntax, because some characters aren't parsed correctly in the dot notation.
param location string = resourceGroup().location
resource stgAccount 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts@2021-04-01' = {
name: 'storage${uniqueString(resourceGroup().id)}'
location: location
sku: {
name: 'Standard_LRS'
}
kind: 'Storage'
tags: {
Dept: resourceGroup().tags['Dept']
Environment: resourceGroup().tags['Environment']
}
}
Apply tags to resource groups or subscriptions
You can add tags to a resource group or subscription by deploying the Microsoft.Resources/tags
resource type. You can apply the tags to the target resource group or subscription you want to deploy. Each time you deploy the template you replace any previous tags.
param tagName string = 'TeamName'
param tagValue string = 'AppTeam1'
resource applyTags 'Microsoft.Resources/tags@2021-04-01' = {
name: 'default'
properties: {
tags: {
'${tagName}': tagValue
}
}
}
The following Bicep adds the tags from an object to the subscription it's deployed to. For more information about subscription deployments, see Create resource groups and resources at the subscription level.
targetScope = 'subscription'
param tagObject object = {
TeamName: 'AppTeam1'
Dept: 'Finance'
Environment: 'Production'
}
resource applyTags 'Microsoft.Resources/tags@2021-04-01' = {
name: 'default'
properties: {
tags: tagObject
}
}
Next steps
- Not all resource types support tags. To determine if you can apply a tag to a resource type, see Tag support for Azure resources.
- For recommendations on how to implement a tagging strategy, see Resource naming and tagging decision guide.
- For tag recommendations and limitations, see Use tags to organize your Azure resources and management hierarchy.