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AKS cluster resources must use standard naming#

Operational Excellence · Azure Kubernetes Service · Rule · 2025_12 · Awareness

AKS cluster resources without a standard naming convention may be difficult to identify and manage.

Description#

An effective naming convention allows operators to quickly identify resources, related systems, and their purpose. Identifying resources easily is important to improve operational efficiency, reduce the time to respond to incidents, and minimize the risk of human error.

Some of the benefits of using standardized tagging and naming conventions are:

  • They provide consistency and clarity for resource identification and discovery across the Azure Portal, CLIs, and APIs.
  • They enable filtering and grouping of resources for billing, monitoring, security, and compliance purposes.
  • They support resource lifecycle management, such as provisioning, decommissioning, backup, and recovery.

For example, if you come upon a security incident, it's critical to quickly identify affected systems, the functions that those systems support, and the potential business impact.

For AKS cluster, the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) recommends using the aks- prefix.

Requirements for AKS cluster resource names:

  • Between 1 and 63 characters long.
  • Can include alphanumeric characters, hyphens, underscores, and periods (restrictions vary by resource type).
  • Resource names must be unique within their scope.

Recommendation#

Consider creating AKS cluster resources with a standard name. Additionally consider using Azure Policy to only permit creation using a standard naming convention.

Examples#

Configure with Bicep#

To deploy clusters that pass this rule:

  • Set the name property to a string that matches the naming requirements.
  • Optionally, consider constraining name parameters with minLength and maxLength attributes.

For example:

Azure Bicep snippet
@minLength(1)
@maxLength(63)
@description('The name of the resource.')
param name string

@description('The location resources will be deployed.')
param location string = resourceGroup().location

resource cluster 'Microsoft.ContainerService/managedClusters@2025-07-01' = {
  location: location
  name: name
  identity: {
    type: 'UserAssigned'
    userAssignedIdentities: {
      '${identity.id}': {}
    }
  }
  properties: {
    kubernetesVersion: kubernetesVersion
    disableLocalAccounts: true
    enableRBAC: true
    dnsPrefix: dnsPrefix
    agentPoolProfiles: allPools
    aadProfile: {
      managed: true
      enableAzureRBAC: true
      adminGroupObjectIDs: clusterAdmins
      tenantID: subscription().tenantId
    }
    networkProfile: {
      networkPlugin: 'azure'
      networkPolicy: 'azure'
      loadBalancerSku: 'standard'
      serviceCidr: serviceCidr
      dnsServiceIP: dnsServiceIP
    }
    apiServerAccessProfile: {
      authorizedIPRanges: [
        '0.0.0.0/32'
      ]
    }
    autoUpgradeProfile: {
      upgradeChannel: 'stable'
    }
    oidcIssuerProfile: {
      enabled: true
    }
    addonProfiles: {
      azurepolicy: {
        enabled: true
      }
      omsagent: {
        enabled: true
        config: {
          logAnalyticsWorkspaceResourceID: workspaceId
        }
      }
      azureKeyvaultSecretsProvider: {
        enabled: true
        config: {
          enableSecretRotation: 'true'
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Configure with Azure Verified Modules

A pre-validated module supported by Microsoft is available from the Azure Bicep public registry. To reference the module, please use the following syntax:

br/public:avm/res/container-service/managed-cluster:<version>

To use the latest version:

br/public:avm/res/container-service/managed-cluster:0.9.0

Configure with Azure template#

To deploy clusters that pass this rule:

  • Set the name property to a string that matches the naming requirements.
  • Optionally, consider constraining name parameters with minLength and maxLength attributes.
Azure Template snippet
{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "name": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "The name of the AKS cluster."
      }
    },
    "location": {
      "type": "string",
      "defaultValue": "[resourceGroup().location]",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "Optional. The Azure region to deploy to."
      }
    }
  },
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.ContainerService/managedClusters",
      "apiVersion": "2025-07-01",
      "name": "[parameters('name')]",
      "location": "[parameters('location')]",
      "identity": {
        "type": "UserAssigned",
        "userAssignedIdentities": {
          "[format('{0}', resourceId('Microsoft.ManagedIdentity/userAssignedIdentities', parameters('identityName')))]": {}
        }
      },
      "properties": {
        "kubernetesVersion": "[parameters('kubernetesVersion')]",
        "disableLocalAccounts": true,
        "enableRBAC": true,
        "dnsPrefix": "[parameters('dnsPrefix')]",
        "agentPoolProfiles": "[variables('allPools')]",
        "aadProfile": {
          "managed": true,
          "enableAzureRBAC": true,
          "adminGroupObjectIDs": "[parameters('clusterAdmins')]",
          "tenantID": "[subscription().tenantId]"
        },
        "networkProfile": {
          "networkPlugin": "azure",
          "networkPolicy": "azure",
          "loadBalancerSku": "standard",
          "serviceCidr": "[variables('serviceCidr')]",
          "dnsServiceIP": "[variables('dnsServiceIP')]"
        },
        "apiServerAccessProfile": {
          "authorizedIPRanges": [
            "0.0.0.0/32"
          ]
        },
        "autoUpgradeProfile": {
          "upgradeChannel": "stable"
        },
        "oidcIssuerProfile": {
          "enabled": true
        },
        "addonProfiles": {
          "azurepolicy": {
            "enabled": true
          },
          "omsagent": {
            "enabled": true,
            "config": {
              "logAnalyticsWorkspaceResourceID": "[parameters('workspaceId')]"
            }
          },
          "azureKeyvaultSecretsProvider": {
            "enabled": true,
            "config": {
              "enableSecretRotation": "true"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Notes#

This rule does not check if AKS cluster resource names are unique.

Rule configuration#

AZURE_AKS_CLUSTER_NAME_FORMAT

To configure this rule set the AZURE_AKS_CLUSTER_NAME_FORMAT configuration value to a regular expression that matches the required format.

For example:

configuration:
  AZURE_AKS_CLUSTER_NAME_FORMAT: '^aks-'

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