AKS Naming Conventions: Azure CAF Best Practices for Kubernetes

Deploying Azure Kubernetes Service involves more than naming the cluster itself. A production AKS setup typically spans a dozen or more Azure resources — the cluster, node pools, a Container Registry, Virtual Network, subnets, NSGs, a managed identity, and often a Key Vault for secrets. Consistent naming across all of them is what makes the deployment navigable, automatable, and supportable long-term.

This guide covers CAF-compliant naming for AKS clusters and everything that surrounds them.

AKS cluster naming

The CAF abbreviation for AKS is aks. The naming rule:

• Max length: 63 characters
• Allowed characters: Alphanumerics and hyphens
• Must start with: A letter

Standard CAF pattern:

aks-{company}-{workload}-{environment}-{region}-{instance}

Examples:

Convention	Name
contoso / payments / prod / eus / 001	aks-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001
fabrikam / api / dev / weu / 001	aks-fabrikam-api-dev-weu-001

At 63 characters maximum, AKS clusters have more room than most resources — the full pattern including company and department rarely hits the limit.

Node pool naming

Node pools are the awkward exception in an AKS deployment. They have a strict constraint that the cluster name doesn’t:

• Max length: 12 characters
• Allowed characters: Lowercase alphanumerics only (no hyphens)
• Must start with: A lowercase letter

The system node pool must be named agentpool (it’s the default and cannot be renamed on existing clusters). For additional node pools, use a short descriptive name:

{workload}{pool-role}{instance}

Examples:

Purpose	Name
System pool	agentpool
General workloads	general001
GPU compute	gpu001
Memory-optimised	mem001
Spot instances	spot001

Keep node pool names functional, not decorative — they appear in kubectl output constantly and short names reduce noise.

Supporting resources

A complete AKS deployment involves these surrounding resources, each with its own CAF abbreviation and constraints:

Container Registry

cr-{company}-{workload}-{environment}-{region}-{instance}

• Max length: 50 characters
• Alphanumerics only (no hyphens in the registry name itself — note: the CAF abbreviation cr is used as a prefix even though the registry name can’t contain hyphens in some configurations, so: cr{company}{workload}{env}{instance} for the actual ACR name)

Example: crcontosopaymentsprod001

Virtual Network

vnet-{company}-{workload}-{environment}-{region}-{instance}

Example: vnet-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001

Subnet

snet-{purpose}-{environment}-{instance}

Example: snet-aks-prod-001

Subnets are scoped to the VNet, so full company/workload context is usually redundant.

Network Security Group

nsg-{company}-{workload}-{environment}-{region}-{instance}

Example: nsg-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001

Managed Identity (for AKS)

id-{company}-{workload}-{environment}-{region}-{instance}

Example: id-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001

Key Vault (for secrets)

Key Vault’s 24-character limit means dropping components. Drop region first, then department:

kv-{workload}-{environment}-{instance}

Example: kv-payments-prod-001 (20 chars ✓)

Full naming example

For a production AKS deployment: company contoso, workload payments, region eus:

Resource	Name
Resource Group	rg-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001
AKS Cluster	aks-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001
System Node Pool	agentpool
User Node Pool	general001
Container Registry	crcontosopaymentsprod001
Virtual Network	vnet-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001
AKS Subnet	snet-aks-prod-001
NSG	nsg-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001
Managed Identity	id-contoso-payments-prod-eus-001
Key Vault	kv-payments-prod-001

DNS and ingress naming

If you use an NGINX or Application Gateway ingress, the public DNS name is typically set via an Azure DNS zone or annotation. Follow the same convention for the DNS zone name and any A records:

# Azure DNS zone
payments.contoso.com

# Ingress hostname pattern
{workload}.{environment}.{company}.com
payments.prod.contoso.com

For internal services within the cluster, use Kubernetes Service naming conventions (lowercase, hyphens), which already align well with CAF patterns.

Applying names in Terraform

For Terraform-based AKS deployments, centralise all names in locals before writing resource blocks:

locals {
  company  = "contoso"
  workload = "payments"
  env      = "prod"
  region   = "eus"
  instance = "001"

  base = "${local.company}-${local.workload}-${local.env}-${local.region}-${local.instance}"

  rg_name   = "rg-${local.base}"
  aks_name  = "aks-${local.base}"
  vnet_name = "vnet-${local.base}"
  nsg_name  = "nsg-${local.base}"
  id_name   = "id-${local.base}"
  kv_name   = "kv-${local.workload}-${local.env}-${local.instance}"
  acr_name  = lower("cr${local.company}${local.workload}${local.env}${local.instance}")
}

Generating names for your AKS deployment

AzureNamer covers all AKS-related resource types — clusters, Container Registries, VNets, NSGs, and more. Enter your convention once and export the full set as CSV to use in Terraform, Bicep, or directly in the Azure portal.

Try AzureNamer →