Metadata Tags
Organizations can configure meshStack to collect, attach and distribute organization-specific metadata to objects in the meshModel. Currently, meshCustomers, meshProjects, meshLandingZones and meshPaymentMethods support this metadata.
Depending on the configuration of the administrators, some of these tags will be applied directly on to the meshTenant(s) in the cloud platform.
Metadata consists of key-value pairs called Tags. Administrators influence the available tags by configuring organization tags in the Administration area.
These tags are displayed in the meshPanel in their respective places and they can be recognized by green bubbles that display the name and value of the tag. Take these meshCustomers tags as an example, which are visible in the customer home screen:
As you can see with the environment tag (with dev, test and qa as values), it is also possible for tags to have multiple values.
Integration in meshPanel
meshPanel seamlessly integrates any tags that can be set by allowing users to input the tag values in self-service on the relevant screens, e.g. the project creation wizard and the project edit screen. From a users' point of view, there's no difference between properties defined in meshStack's meshModel or defined in the tag editor.
Tags restricted to Administrators
Administrators can configure tags so that only Partner users can edit them. These tags are called restricted tags. End-users cannot edit restricted tags in meshPanel, but they can view them at anytime. Partner users can view and edit restricted and unrestricted tags.
Note: In all meshStack versions prior to v7.52.0, partners are not able to edit unrestricted tags.
The administration documentation provides further details on how partner users can edit restricted tags.
Immutable tags
Administrators can configure immutable tags. This means that we allow the selection of specific tag values only during the creation process of meshCustomers, meshProjects, meshLandingZones and meshPaymentMethods. Afterwards it is no longer possible to edit the selected values. Also administrators cannot change immutable tag values after creation. For example if you create a meshProject with environment tag dev then you can't change the meshProject to prod. If you want a meshProject with environment tag dev then you need to create a new meshProject.
Enforce organizational policies using tags
Beside providing valuable metadata, tags can also be used to enforce organizational policies in your meshstack. A common use case for this is enforcing that a meshCustomer can only create meshProjects for which it has one of the environment tag values set. If a meshCustomer has environment dev and qa, it is possible to enforce that users only create meshProjects for these environments but not for e.g. prod projects (until an adminstrator gives the meshCustomer a prod environment tag). The environment tag on the meshCustomer should also be a restricted tag in this case to ensure only partners can influence this behavior.
To learn more, read the meshPolicies page for other use cases and explanations.