# First things first ## Your goal: Coherence The design of a tag strategy, like any other **standardization, requires coherence**.The name of your **keys**, the value of your **tags**, your **APIs**. **Everything must** be done intelligently to **make sense**. If you already have some kind of convention, you will have to migrate it to your new standard. It is difficult for users to deal with two rival standards. ## Tagging is achieve through automation **Tagging requires rigor**, despite the fact that it is a **repetitive and boring task**. Fortunately for us computers excel in this area. **Tagging should not** be apply by a **human**, **but through automation.** This means that your **infrastructure provisioning** processes **need to be automated.** ## Multi Cloud Tagging If you are on a **multi-cloud strategy**, your providers may have **different tag constrains**. You'll have to establish a **compatibility between your providers**. Some cloud don't accept capital letters tag keys, others don't accept dots... Some limitation are listed in [Resources/Cloud Tag Limitation](/resources/cloud-tag-limitation.md). Even if they are often *n* **separate teams** managing *n* clouds, **don't silo** your teams in charge of your standardization. **Otherwise** you **risk** getting **duplicate tags between your suppliers**, it's silly, **inconsistent,** and your internal infra teams won't adhere to a **wobbly standard.** ## Involve the Finance department The more you get into the cloud, the more money you'll spend. Sooner or later you will discover the role of the Comptroller. And they will rightly want to know how and for whom these resources are allocated. As an IT person, you don't have the vision of how the company is financially structured. Your tags should allow you to break down the cost of the infrastructure in your organization. So ask the finance department, the way they run the business to design the best possible categorization in order to facilitate the work of the FinOps team. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://tag-policy.docs.vincoll.dev/introduction/first-things-first.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.