When working with hundreds or thousands of Devboxes, effective organization becomes crucial. Runloop provides a powerful metadata system to help you tag, categorize, and filter your Devboxes efficiently.

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Using Metadata

Metadata allows you to attach custom key-value pairs to your Devboxes. This information can include:
  • Project names
  • Team assignments
  • Environment types (e.g., development, staging, production)
  • Any other relevant tags for your workflow

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Adding Metadata to Devboxes

When creating a Devbox, you can include metadata to help organize and filter them later: 
curl -X POST 'https://api.runloop.ai/v1/devboxes' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RUNLOOP_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "metadata": {
      "project": "runloop-fe",
      "team": "frontend",
      "environment": "development"
    }
  }'

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Benefits of Using Metadata

  1. Easy Filtering: Quickly find Devboxes related to specific projects or teams.
  2. Improved Organization: Group Devboxes logically based on your workflow.
  3. Enhanced Visibility: Easily identify the purpose and ownership of each Devbox.
  4. Streamlined Management: Perform bulk operations on Devboxes with similar metadata.

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Viewing and Filtering Metadata

The Runloop dashboard displays metadata tags for each Devbox, allowing you to:
  • View all metadata associated with a Devbox at a glance
  • Use integrated filters to sort and find Devboxes based on their metadata
  • Create custom views based on frequently used metadata filters

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Best Practices for Using Metadata

  1. Consistent Naming: Use a consistent naming convention for your metadata keys and values.
  2. Relevant Information: Include only metadata that is useful for organizing and filtering.
  3. Update Regularly: Keep metadata up-to-date as projects evolve or team assignments change.
  4. Use Hierarchies: Consider using hierarchical metadata (e.g., “env:production” instead of just “production”).
By effectively using metadata, you can maintain organization and clarity even when managing thousands of Devboxes across multiple projects and teams.