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Labels

Labels are key/value pairs that are attached to objects, such as pods. Labels can be used to organize and to select subsets of objects. They are created by users at the same time as an object. Each object can have a set of key/value labels set on it, with at most one label with a particular key.

"labels": {
  "key1" : "value1",
  "key2" : "value2"
}

While there are no restrictions on the format of label values, label keys must be of the form:

label-key ::= prefixed-name | name
prefixed-name ::= prefix '/' name
prefix ::= DNS_SUBDOMAIN
name ::= DNS_LABEL

DNS_LABEL and DNS_SUBDOMAIN are defined in the identifiers design doc. The prefix is optional. If the prefix is not specified, the key is assumed to be private to the user. Other system components that wish to use labels must specify a prefix. The "kubernetes.io/" prefix is reserved for use by kubernetes components.

Unlike names and UIDs, labels do not provide uniqueness. In general, we expect many objects to carry the same label(s).

Via a label selector, the client/user can identify a set of objects. The label selector is the core grouping primitive in Kubernetes.

We also plan to make labels available inside pods and lifecycle hooks.

Labels let you categorize objects in a complex service deployment or batch processing pipelines along multiple dimensions, such as:

  • release=stable, release=canary, ...
  • environment=dev, environment=qa, environment=production
  • tier=frontend, tier=backend, ...
  • partition=customerA, partition=customerB, ...
  • track=daily, track=weekly

These are just examples; you are free to develop your own conventions.

Label selectors permit very simple filtering by label keys and values. Currently, label selectors only support these forms:

key1
key1 = value11
key1 != value11
key1 in (value11, value12, ...)
key1 not in (value11, value12, ...)

LIST and WATCH operations may specify label selectors to filter the sets of objects returned using a query parameter: ?labels=key1%3Dvalue1,key2%3Dvalue2,....

The service and replicationController kinds of objects use selectors to match sets of pods that they operate on.

See the Labels Design Document for more about how we expect labels and selectors to be used, and planned features.