Workspace Tags

On this page

Template administrators can leverage static template tags to limit workspace provisioning to designated provisioner groups that have locally deployed credentials for creating workspace resources. While this method ensures controlled access, it offers limited flexibility and does not permit users to select the nodes for their workspace creation.

By using coder_workspace_tags and coder_parameters, template administrators can enable dynamic tag selection and modify static template tags.

Dynamic tag selection

Here is a sample coder_workspace_tags data resource with a few workspace tags specified:

data "coder_workspace_tags" "custom_workspace_tags" {
  tags = {
    "zone"        = "developers"
    "runtime"     = data.coder_parameter.runtime_selector.value
    "project_id"  = "PROJECT_${data.coder_parameter.project_name.value}"
    "cache"       = data.coder_parameter.feature_cache_enabled.value == "true" ? "with-cache" : "no-cache"
  }
}

Legend

zone - static tag value set to developers
runtime - supported by the string-type coder_parameter to select provisioner runtime, runtime_selector
project_id - a formatted string supported by the string-type coder_parameter, project_name
cache - an HCL condition involving boolean-type coder_parameter, feature_cache_enabled

Review the full template example using coder_workspace_tags and coder_parameters.

Constraints

Tagged provisioners

It is possible to choose tag combinations that no provisioner can handle. This will cause the provisioner job to get stuck in the queue until a provisioner is added that can handle its combination of tags.

Before releasing the template version with configurable workspace tags, ensure that every tag set is associated with at least one healthy provisioner.

Parameters types

Provisioners require job tags to be defined in plain string format. When a workspace tag refers to a coder_parameter without involving the string formatter, for example, ("runtime" = data.coder_parameter.runtime_selector.value), the Coder provisioner server can transform only the following parameter types to strings: string, number, and bool.

Mutability

A mutable coder_parameter can be dangerous for a workspace tag as it allows the workspace owner to change a provisioner group (due to different tags). In most cases, coder_parameters backing coder_workspace_tags should be marked as immutable and set only once, during workspace creation.

HCL syntax

When importing the template version with coder_workspace_tags, the Coder provisioner server extracts raw partial queries for each workspace tag and stores them in the database. During workspace build time, the Coder server uses the Hashicorp HCL library to evaluate these raw queries on-the-fly without processing the entire Terraform template. This evaluation is simpler but also limited in terms of available functions, variables, and references to other resources.

Supported syntax

Static string: foobar_tag = "foobaz"
Formatted string: foobar_tag = "foobaz ${data.coder_parameter.foobaz.value}"
Reference to coder_parameter: foobar_tag = data.coder_parameter.foobar.value
Boolean logic: production_tag = !data.coder_parameter.staging_env.value
Condition: cache = data.coder_parameter.feature_cache_enabled.value == "true" ? "with-cache" : "no-cache"