Stage 2 · Lesson 4 of 7
Writing a tagging policy
A is a short written agreement: the required keys, the allowed values for each, who owns each value list, where tags are applied (ideally in infrastructure code), how compliance is measured and what happens to untagged resources.
Four or five required keys is plenty for most teams, for example cost-center, team, env, app and owner. Publish it where engineers look, review it twice a year, and measure the share of cost that is correctly tagged.
Common trapwriting a 30-key policy nobody follows instead of a 5-key policy everybody does.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come with the full roadmap. Unlock
Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- CourseFreeMicrosoft Learn FinOps modules
Microsoft · Beginner
Free: the "Understand cloud usage and cost" unit of Adopt FinOps on Azure
- BookPaidCloud FinOps, 2nd edition (O'Reilly)
O'Reilly Media · Intermediate · Paid book
Paid: the chapters on allocation and tagging strategy explain the reasoning behind a good policy