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Clarify reserved service attribute behavior #39720

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Clarify reserved service attribute behavior #39720

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32784a8
Clarify reserved service attribute behavior
wjiang720 Sep 3, 2026
f4d5b2b
Distinguish V1 and V2 service tag selection
wjiang720 Sep 3, 2026
55c0583
Streamline service tag selection example
wjiang720 Sep 3, 2026
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11 changes: 11 additions & 0 deletions hugo/content/en/events/explorer/attributes.md
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Expand Up @@ -28,6 +28,17 @@ This list describes automatically ingested reserved attributes with events.
| `service` | The name of the application or service generating the events. |
| `message` | By default, Datadog ingests the value of the `message` attribute as the body of the event entry. |

### Events with multiple service tags

The reserved `service` attribute accepts one value. If an event has multiple `service` tags:

- V1 selects the first `service` tag it processes. Because tags are not sorted, the result is not deterministic.
- V2 sorts the tags alphabetically and selects the first `service` tag.

For example, consider an event with `env:prod`, `service:payments`, `team:store`, and `service:checkout`. V1 can assign either service value. V2 assigns `checkout`, because `service:checkout` comes before `service:payments` alphabetically.

@joepeeples joepeeples Sep 3, 2026

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For example, consider an event with `env:prod`, `service:payments`, `team:store`, and `service:checkout`. V1 can assign either service value. V2 assigns `checkout`, because `service:checkout` comes before `service:payments` alphabetically.
For example, consider an event with `env:prod`, `service:payments`, `team:store`, and `service:checkout`. V1 can assign either `service` value. V2 assigns `checkout`, because `service:checkout` comes before `service:payments` alphabetically.


Send only one `service` tag per event and use another tag key for additional dimensions. A `service:<value>` query matches the reserved attribute; use `tags:("service:<value>")` to find any value in the raw tag list.

To search a tag that has the same key as a reserved attribute, use the `tags` search syntax.
Example: `tags:("status:<status>")`

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