When you define an auto-tagging rule or a management-zone rule targeting a specific entity type, Dynatrace can automatically extend that rule's effect to related entity types through implicit propagation. These propagation paths are fixed and built into the Dynatrace rule engine; no additional configuration is required.
Implicit propagation means that metadata applied by a rule to a source entity type is automatically inherited by one or more target entity types, without any additional rule configuration. Propagation applies to newly created entities as well, so a child entity that appears after a rule is already active immediately inherits its parent's assignments.
Only auto-tagging rules and management-zone rules trigger implicit propagation. Conditional naming rules and entity-selector-based rules do not.
The following table lists all implicit propagation paths, the target entity types that inherit the metadata, and the rule types for which propagation is active.
| Source entity type | Propagates to | Available for | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Process group | Process group instance | Auto-tagging, Management zones | Ensures tags and management-zone assignments applied to a logical process group automatically reach its runtime instances. |
Process group | Process group instance, Container group | Management zones | Management-zone metadata flows to the instances and container groups related to the process group. |
Process group | Container group instance | Management zones | Ensures containerized runtime instances receive process-group-level management-zone data. |
Host | Kubernetes node | Auto-tagging, Management zones | Host-level metadata is propagated to the Kubernetes node that the host represents. |
Host | EC2 instance, Container group instance | Management zones | Host-level metadata propagates to cloud instance representations and container group instances running on that host. |
Hypervisor | vCenter | Management zones | Hypervisor-level metadata is visible on the associated vCenter object. |
AWS credentials | AWS availability zone, AWS Lambda function, AWS application load balancer, AWS network load balancer, EC2 instance, Custom device, Custom device group, Auto scaling group, Relational database service | Management zones | Credential-level tags and labels propagate broadly across all AWS resource types discovered using those credentials. Expect wide propagation scope when targeting credential-level entities. |
Cloud application | Cloud application instance | Management zones | Cloud-application metadata flows to its concrete running instances. |
Synthetic test | Application | Management zones | Metadata on a synthetic test can flow to the application that the test targets. |