Object tags allow you to organize and categorize your Datasets, Worksheets, and dashboards with custom key-value pairs. Object tags make it easier to filter, search, and manage your observability assets across your workspace.

An object tag consists of two parts:

• Key: A category or attribute name, such as team, environment, or service.
• Value: The specific value for that category, such as platform, production, or checkout.

You can assign multiple object tags to any entity, and each key can have multiple values.

Where can I add object tags

You can add object tags in the following ways:

• Add object tags to a new Dataset
• Add object tags to an existing Dataset
• Add object tags to Worksheets and dashboards
• Add object tags to favorites

Add object tags to a new Dataset

When you are creating a new Dataset, click Save and add the object tags in the modal. Click the Tags drop-down to select a key, followed by its value, then repeat as many times as needed to create your desired object tags:

Add object tags to an existing Dataset

Perform the following tasks to add object tags to an existing Dataset:

1. Click Datasets in the left navigation to access the Datasets Explorer.

2. Find the Dataset to which you want to add object tags, then hover on the Dataset's name and click the Open dataset page icon ().

3. Click the Properties tab.

4. Under the Labels section, click the Tags drop-down to select a key, followed by its value, then repeat as many times as needed to create your desired object tags:

   

5. Click Save.

Add object tags to Worksheets and dashboards

When you are editing any Worksheet or dashboard, click Configure to add object tags to your Worksheet or dashboard. For example, here are object tags added to a dashboard:

Add object tags to Favorites

Whenever you click the star icon () in Observe to add content to your Favorites, you can also add object tags. For example:

How do I know if an entity already has object tags?

Any entity with object tags already configured has a Tags label near the entity name. You can hover on the label to view the object tags that are configured. For example, this dashboard has two object tags defined for it:

Filter your data using object tags

The following areas of Observe support filtering by object tag:

1. Dataset Explorer
2. Worksheet Explorer
3. Dashboard Explorer
4. Favorites
5. Dataset input picker

Say you are a member of the AI team in your organization. Use the following examples to help you filter content in Observe so that you can see helpful assets for just your team.

Filter entities in your Datasets, Worksheets, and dashboards

You can filter by clicking on an object tag in the Object Tags column. The object tag you click on is added to the top filter bar. In this example, we have clicked on Team=AI in the Object tags column:

You can also click directly in the filter bar and select object tags from the modal. First, select the desired key, then select the value.

Click the x on any object tag in the filter bar to remove that object tag as a filter.

Let's say we want to make the K8s Kubernetes Dashboard a favorite. Let's click on that dashboard, then click on the star icon () to save it as a Favorite, and add the Team=AI object tag:

Favorites

Favorites can be filtered in the left navigation search panel. Use the Search object tags selector to pick tags to filter by.

Once again, if we filter by the Team=AI object tag, we see K8s Kubernetes Dashboard that we made a favorite with the Team=AI object tag:

Dataset input picker

In the Log Explorer, the Dataset input picker can be filtered by object tag where you also filter by logs or events. Filter selections persist during your session even after the picker is closed:

Manage object tags using Terraform

Object tags can be managed programmatically using the Observe Terraform provider, allowing you to apply consistent tagging strategies across your infrastructure-as-code workflows.

Terraform resources

Object tags are supported on the following Terraform resources:

• observe_dataset
• observe_dashboard
• observe_worksheet
• observe_bookmark (favorites)

Basic usage

Add object tags using the object_tags attribute:

resource "observe_dataset" "example" {
  workspace = data.observe_workspace.default.oid
  name      = "HTTP observations"
  # ... other configuration ...

  object_tags = {
    environment = "production"
    team        = "backend,frontend"
  }
}

Multiple values

Use comma-separated values for multiple values per object tag:

object_tags = {
  team = "platform,sre"
}

Special cases

Leading/trailing spaces: Automatically trimmed from values

object_tags = {
  team = " platform , sre "  # Becomes "platform,sre"
}`

Values with spaces: Internal spaces are preserved

object_tags = {
  description = "Team Alpha,Team Beta"  # Two values: "Team Alpha" and "Team Beta"
}

Values with commas: Use CSV-style escaping

object_tags = {
  note = "\\"Team A, Inc\\",\\"Team B, LLC\\""
}

See also

• Observe Terraform Provider Documentation

Required object tags

Workspace administrators can configure required object tags that must be present on all entities before the entities can be saved. This ensures consistent tagging practices across your organization.

See Required object tags for instructions on how to configure required object tags.