Update Jan 1, 2022: Thank you for making this blog post so popular. It is a first page Google and Bing search result for aws terraform tags .

Originally we coded the default tags examples for Terraform 0.12 . We updated the example code for Terraform 1.0 and Terragrunt.

Check out Part 2 for solutions to bugs and issues using Terraform AWS Tags in production.

Update Feb 17, 2022: I gave a talk at HashiCorp 2022 about this blog post.

AWS tags are key-value labels you can assign to AWS resources
that give extra information about it.

DEPT® Cloud Engineering practice recommends the following AWS tags best practices:

• Define an explicit ruleset for tag key naming and stick with it.Inconsistent tags keys such as "appid", "Application ID", and "App_ID" are frustrating to use.
• Strive for more tags, not less. Tag all AWS resources.

The minimum Rocket Insights recommended set of tags are

• Name: human-readable resource name. Note that the AWS Console UI displays the case-sensitive "Name" tag.
• app-id: the application using the resource
• app-role: the resource's technical function, e.g. webserver, database
• app-purpose: the resource's business purpose, e.g. "frontend ui", "payment processor"
• environment: dev, test, or prod
• project: what projects use the resource
• owner: who to contact about the resource
• cost-center: who to bill for the resource usage
• automation-exclude: a true/false value for automation to not modify the resource
• pii: a true/false value if the resource stores personal identifiable information
• Tag all Terraform created AWS resources with code path info.Tagging all AWS resources with the Terraform base and module path results in easier infrastructure maintenance.

Starting with Terraform 0.12.31 and AWS provider v3.38.0, HashiCorp added the default tags feature.
You can now configure AWS tag in one place and automatically apply them to all AWS resources. You no longer have to manually add tags blocks to each individual Terraform AWS resource.

This Terraform AWS default tags tutorial demonstrates for both Terraform resources and modules:

• Basic usage
• Providing alternate default tags
• Adding and overriding tags to the default

For the full Terraform code, please visit the Rocket Insights Github repo.

Basic Usage

The default tags are defined in the AWS provider section. It automatically applies to all AWS resources.

locals {
  // Change the local variable to match the git repo name
  terraform-git-repo = "terraform-blog-default-tags"
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
  default_tags {
    tags = {
	  owner    = "Rocket Insights"	
      project  = "Project A"
      // This regex results in the terraform git 
      // repo name and any sub-directories.
      // For this repo, terraform-base-path is 
      // terraform-blog-default-tags/default-tags
      // This tag helps AWS UI users discover what 
      // Terraform git repo and directory to modify
      terraform-base-path = replace(path.cwd, 
		"/^.*?(${local.terraform-git-repo}\\/)/", "$1")
    }
  }
}

resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "default-tags-basic" {
  name = "default-tags-basic"
  .......
}

The final tags for aws_dynamodb_table.default-tags-basic are
owner = "Rocket Insights"
project = "Project A"
terraform-base-path = "terraform-blog-default-tags/default-tags"

Alternate Default Tags

If an AWS resource requires alternate default tags, define an alternate AWS provider with new default tags.

provider "aws" {
  alias  = "alt-tags"
  region = "us-east-1"
  default_tags {
    tags = {
      app-id = "Terraform Default Tags"
      owner  = "Alt Owner"
    }
  }
}

resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "default-tags-alternate" {
  provider = aws.alt-tags
  name     = "default-tags-alternate"
  ........
}

The final tags for aws_dynamodb_table.default-tags-alternate are
app-id = "Terraform Default Tags"
owner  = "Alt Owner"

Add and Override Default Tags

If an AWS resource requires more tags in addition to the default tags, simply add the tag to the built-in resource tags block.

If an AWS resource requires to override a default tag, define a tag with the same key in the tags block.

locals {
  terraform-git-repo = "terraform-blog-default-tags"
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
  default_tags {
    tags = {
	  owner    = "Rocket Insights"	
      project  = "Project A"
      terraform-base-path = replace(path.cwd, 
		"/^.*?(${local.terraform-git-repo}\\/)/", "$1")
    }
  }
}

resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "default-tags-add" {
  name     = "default-tags-add"
  .......
  
  tags = {
    cost-center = "Rocket Insights Billing"
    project     = "Project Override"
  }
}

The final tags for aws_dynamodb_table.default-tags-add are
cost-center = "Rocket Insights Billing"
owner = "Rocket Insights"
project = "Project Override"
terraform-base-path  = "terraform-blog-default-tags/default-tags"

Modules Basic Usage

The AWS default tags apply to existing Terraform AWS modules without any changes needed.

locals {
  terraform-git-repo = "terraform-blog-default-tags"
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
  default_tags {
    tags = {
	  owner    = "Rocket Insights"	
      project  = "Project A"
      terraform-base-path = replace(path.cwd, 
		"/^.*?(${local.terraform-git-repo}\\/)/", "$1")
    }
  }
}

module "default-tags-dynamodb" {
  source = "./tfmodules/default-tags-dynamodb"
}

// In ./tfmodules/default-tags-dynamodb
resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "default-tags-module" {
  name = "default-tags-module"
  ......
}

The final tags for module.default-tags-dynamodb.aws_dynamodb_table.default-tags-module are
owner = "Rocket Insights"
project = "Project A"
terraform-base-path = "terraform-blog-default-tags/default-tags"

Modules and Alternate Tags

If an AWS module requires alternate default tags, define an alternate AWS provider with new default tags
and pass the new provider to the module.

provider "aws" {
  alias  = "alt-tags"
  region = "us-east-1"
  default_tags {
    tags = {
      app-id = "Terraform Default Tags"
      owner  = "Alt Owner"
    }
  }
}

module "default-tags-dynamodb-alternate" {
  source = "./tfmodules/default-tags-dynamodb"
  providers = {
    aws = aws.alt-tags
  }
  .......
}

// In ./tfmodules/default-tags-dynamodb
resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "default-tags-module" {
  name = "default-tags-module"
  ......
}

The final tags for module.default-tags-dynamodb-alternate.aws_dynamodb_table.default-tags-module are
app-id = "Terraform Default Tags"
owner  = "Alt Owner"

Modules with both Default and Alternate Tags

If an AWS module requires both the default and alternate default tags, define the default and alternate AWS providers
and pass both providers to module. Then the module assigns the correct AWS provider to the AWS resource.

This is valuable since certain AWS resources like aws_s3_bucket_object have a maximum limit of 10 tags.

locals {
  terraform-git-repo = "terraform-blog-default-tags"
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
  default_tags {
    tags = {
      owner               = "Rocket Insights"
      project             = "Project A"
      terraform-base-path = replace(path.cwd, 
        "/^.*?(${local.terraform-git-repo}\\/)/", "$1")
    }
  }
}

provider "aws" {
  alias  = "alt-tags"
  region = "us-east-1"
  default_tags {
    tags = {
      app-id = "Terraform Default Tags"
      owner  = "Alt Owner"
    }
  }
}
module "default-and-alternate-tags-dynamodb" {
  source = "./tfmodules/default-and-alternate-tags-dynamodb"
  providers = {
    aws          = aws
    aws.alt-tags = aws.alt-tags
  }
}

// In ./tfmodules/default-and-alternate-tags-dynamodb
provider "aws" {
  alias = "aws"
}
provider "aws" {
  alias = "alt-tags"
}

resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "default-and-alternate-tags-module-basic" {
  name         = "default-and-alternate-tags-module-basic"
  .......
}

resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "default-and-alternate-tags-module-alternate" {
  provider     = aws.alt-tags
  name         = "default-and-alternate-tags-module-alternate"
  .......
} 

The final tags for the two DynamoDB resources in the default-and-alternate-tags-dynamodb TF modules uses the assigned AWS provider tags

The final tags for module.default-and-alternate-tags-dynamodb.aws_dynamodb_table.default-and-alternate-tags-module-basic are
owner = "Rocket Insights"
project  = "Project A"
terraform-base-path = "terraform-blog-default-tags/default-tags"

The final tags for module.default-and-alternate-tags-dynamodb.aws_dynamodb_table.default-and-alternate-tags-module-alternate are
app-id = "Terraform Default Tags"
owner  = "Alt Owner"

Modules and Adding and Overriding Default Tags

If an AWS module requires more tags in addition to the default tags, simply define the module tags variable and add the tag to the module.

locals {
  terraform-git-repo = "terraform-blog-default-tags"
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
  default_tags {
    tags = {
      owner               = "Rocket Insights"
      project             = "Project A"
      terraform-base-path = replace(path.cwd, 
        "/^.*?(${local.terraform-git-repo}\\/)/", "$1")
    }
  }
}

module "default-tags-dynamodb-add" {
  source = "./tfmodules/default-tags-dynamodb-add"

  tags = {
    app-purpose = "Adding Module Tags"
  }
}

// In ./tfmodules/default-tags-dynamodb-add
variable "tags" {
  type        = map(string)
  description = "Additional tags for DynamoDB table"
}
resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "default-tags-module-add" {
  name         = "default-tags-module-add"
  .......
  tags = merge(
      // path.module is a built-in Terraform variable that
      // describes the path of Terraform module
      // For this repo, the terraform-module-path is
      // tfmodules/default-tags-dynamodb-add
      // Along with the terraform-base-path tag,
      // this tag helps AWS UI users
      // discover what module repo to modify
    { terraform-module-path = path.module },
    var.tags
  )
}

The final tags for module.default-tags-dynamodb-add.aws_dynamodb_table.default-tags-module-add are
app-purpose = "Adding Module Tags"
owner = "Rocket Insights"
project = "Project A"
terraform-base-path   = "terraform-blog-default-tags/default-tags"
terraform-module-path = "tfmodules/default-tags-dynamodb-add"

Conclusion

Terraform default tags for AWS are an easy way to add metadata to all AWS resources.
Defining the default tags in one code location follows the best practice of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself).
If you have complex tagging requirements, Terraform is customizable to meet your needs.