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Primary Grail tag rules in OpenPipeline

  • Latest Dynatrace
  • Explanation
  • 4-min read
  • Published Jun 29, 2026

Primary Grail tag rules in OpenPipeline derive primary_tags.* fields from fields already present on incoming records. Rules run globally and apply to all record types.

Overview

OpenPipeline Primary Grail tags is a configuration scope where you can define rules to derive and assign primary_tags.* to any record type. The rules are evaluated before ingest source pre-processing, making the resulting primary_tags.* fields immediately available for routing decisions and further processing, such as bucket assignment or access control policies. All rules are evaluated for every incoming record and overwrite existing primary_tags.* values by default.

Use primary Grail tag rules to promote existing record fields to primary_tags.*, or as a fallback when earlier-stage enrichment and central tag configuration don't cover your use case.

Review best practices

Before configuring primary Grail tag rules in OpenPipeline, review Best practices for enriching primary Grail fields and tags to confirm that other enrichment options don't cover your use case.

Parameters

ParameterDescription

Rule name

Descriptive name for the rule.

Primary tag field name

Configurable, unique key for the primary_tags.* field. The prefix primary_tags. is fixed; for example, env produces primary_tags.env.

Matching condition

DQL expression identifying which records the rule applies to. Defaults to true, which matches all records. The condition isNull(primary_tags.<key>) skips overwriting existing values set on the record.

Source fields

Ordered list of source field names. The used value is the first field that exists on the record with a non-null value. Supported formats are string and numeric field single values.1

Keep source field

When enabled, source fields are retained on the record alongside the new primary tag and primary tags can be configured on nested fields. When disabled, top-level source fields matched by the rule are removed from the record. Primary Grail fields and important Semantic Dictionary fields, such as k8s.namespace.name or aws.account.id, are always retained regardless of this setting. Applies to all source fields in the rule.

Enabled

Whether the rule is active. Defaults to enabled.

1

To normalize or transform a value after it's set, use the DQL processor.

Use cases

  • Consolidate equivalent fields from different sources under a single primary tag—When the same tag is represented by different field names depending on the record type and sources, for example, aws.tags.env, azure.tags.env, and gcp.labels.env, a single configuration maps all variants to primary_tags.env centrally.

Related topics

  • Primary Grail fields and tags
  • Data flow in OpenPipeline
  • OpenPipeline limits
  • Best practices for enriching primary Grail fields and tags
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