Version: 26.1

Resource labels

Common issues experienced with resource labels in AWS, Azure, and GCP:

AWS Batch rejects a resource label defined in Nextflow configuration:

Seqera Platform validates the resource labels you create in a workspace, but resource labels defined with the Nextflow resourceLabels directive bypass that validation and reach AWS Batch unchanged

AWS documents the allowed characters for Batch tags as letters, numbers, spaces, and _ . : / = + - @. AWS Batch rejects a job submission whose tag value contains any other character, and the run fails:

Error executing process > 'NFCORE_RNASEQ:RNASEQ:SORTMERNA_INDEX ([])'
Caused by:
  Tags can only contain letters, numbers, spaces, and the following special characters: _ . : / = + - @ (Service: Batch, Status Code: 400)

This affects any resource label whose value comes from a process or workflow property, such as task.tag. Square brackets are a common cause. In a process that declares the Nextflow tag directive as tag "$meta.id", an empty meta input resolves $meta.id to an empty list, and the directive becomes the literal string []

To resolve, convert each resource label value to a string, replace the disallowed characters, and truncate to the AWS tag value limit of 256 characters. Replace the example keys and values below with your own:

nextflow.config
def sanitizeLabel(value) {
    // The character class is negated: it matches everything AWS Batch disallows
    "${value}".replaceAll(/[^A-Za-z0-9 _.:\/=+@-]/, '_').take(256)
}

process {
    // The closure is evaluated per task, so task and workflow properties resolve at submission
    resourceLabels = { [
        pipelineTag: sanitizeLabel(task.tag),
        pipelineContainer: sanitizeLabel(task.container),
        pipelineRevision: sanitizeLabel(workflow.revision),
        pipelineCommitId: sanitizeLabel(workflow.commitId),
    ] }
}

Converting each value to a string also protects against unset properties. task.tag and task.container are null when the process omits the matching directive, workflow.revision and workflow.commitId are null when the run has no Git revision, and string operations on null fail. A label that comes out as __ or null records an empty or unset property rather than a usable value

Tags not appearing in cost reports:

Allow up to 24 hours for tags to appear in AWS cost allocation console
For Azure, enable tag inheritance and allow 24 hours for processing
Verify that resources are actively running and generating usage data

Permission errors:

Ensure compute environment credentials have the permissions required to tag resources
For Google Cloud, verify billing account administrator access
For Azure, confirm billing profile contributor permissions and appropriate permissions to view Cost Management reports

Missing tag values in cloud provider resources:

Verify that resource labels are applied to the correct compute environment
Check that workflows are using the tagged compute environment
For dynamic resource labels, ensure variables use correct syntax: ${sessionId}, ${userName}, or ${workflowId},

Costs missing for manually created AWS Batch queues:

Compute environments or job queues created manually, outside of Batch Forge, don't inherit Seqera's cost-allocation tags, so their costs don't appear in Cost Explorer or your data exports
Add the relevant cost-allocation tag (for example, project=<value>) to the manually created compute environments, job queues, and related resources in the AWS console
Prefer Batch Forge-created compute environments where possible, so tags propagate automatically

Cost data missing from the AWS data export:

Confirm that the cost-allocation tag keys are activated in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console of the payer (billing) account
Enable split cost allocation data in your Cost and Usage Report preferences — without it, downstream reporting returns blended-only or zero values
Allow a 24–48 hour delay for cost data to appear, then inspect the export (for example, query the Parquet files with Amazon Athena) to confirm the tag keys and their costs are present

Resource label tag keys look different in the AWS Cost and Usage Report:

AWS Cost and Usage Reports (version 2) normalize tag characters: colons (:) are rewritten as underscores (_), and mixed- or upper-case characters are lowercased and separated with underscores (for example, costCenter becomes cost_center)
Design resource-label keys and values that remain unambiguous after normalization, and reference the normalized key names in downstream Athena or QuickSight queries

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Resource labels