Management and governance policy

Azure Policy definition naming convention

The CAF abbreviation for Azure Policy definition is policy. Names can be 1 to 64 characters long and allow alphanumerics, hyphens and underscores. The name must be unique within the subscription.

Naming rules

CAF abbreviation	policy
Length	1 to 64 characters
Allowed characters	Alphanumerics (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), hyphens, underscores
Scope of uniqueness	Unique within the subscription
CAF pattern	policy-{workload}-{environment}-{region}-{instance}

Worth knowing: CAF recommends a descriptive name rather than a fixed abbreviation.

Rules follow Microsoft's resource naming rules and CAF abbreviations. Some resource types have extra start/end character restrictions, so verify against the official docs before locking in a convention.

Example names

Generated by the same engine as the name generator, so length and character rules are already applied.

Scenario	Generated name	Length
Payments API, production	`policy-payments-prod-eus-001`	28/64
Web app, development	`policy-webapp-dev-weu-002`	25/64
Analytics with company prefix	`policy-contoso-analytics-stage-uks-001`	38/64

Naming in Terraform and Bicep

Build the name from variables so one module produces the right name in every environment.

Terraform

locals {
  policy_definition_name = "policy-${var.workload}-${var.environment}-${var.region}-001"
}

Bicep

var policyDefinitionName = 'policy-${workload}-${environment}-${region}-001'

Generate Azure Policy definition names for your workload

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Related Management and governance resources

aa Automation account appi Application Insights ag Azure Monitor action group dcr Azure Monitor data collection rule apr Azure Monitor alert processing rule dce Data collection endpoint script Deployment script log Log Analytics workspace

See the full list of Azure resource naming rules or read the complete CAF naming guide.