set-labels
Last published July 28, 2025
Note: This is a Liquibase Pro feature, so you need a Liquibase Pro License Key to use it.
The set-labels command sets or replaces labels on your changesets using your command line. This is an alternative to setting labels directly in your changelog.
You can choose which changesets to target by specifying a changeset author, ID, path, or an existing context or label filter.
The command works with any SQL, XML, YAML, or JSON changelog. It also works with multiple changelogs specified with the include or includeAll tags. set-labels is available in Liquibase 4.23.1+.
Uses
If you need to apply labelsto many changesets, manually inserting them into your changelog is slow and can lead to errors. Instead, use set-labels to quickly add or replace labelsin bulk.
By default, Liquibase appends any labelsyou specify with set-labels to the list of labelsalready on your changesets. However, if you set --force-replace to true, Liquibase drops existing labelsbefore adding the new ones.
The command is also useful if you want to standardize multiple similar labelsor replace deprecated ones. You can specify command arguments to control the formatting Liquibase uses when it inserts the labelsinto your changelog.
After setting your labelswith set-labels, you can deploy your changes with the update command. While deploying, specify the --labels command argument to control which changesets are run.
Syntax
To run the set-labels command, specify the driver, classpath, and URL in Liquibase properties file. ou can also specify these properties in your command line.
Then run the set-labels command:
liquibase set-labels --changelog-file=example-changelog.xml --set-as=dev,test
For example, targeting changesets by author and existing label filter:
liquibase set-labels
--set-as=rel-02-final
--changelog-file=release-02.sql
--changeset-author="bob"
--label-filter="rel-02"
Replacing existing labelswith --force-replace instead of appending them:
liquibase set-labels
--set-as=rel-02-final
--changelog-file=release-02.sql
--changeset-author="bob"
--context-filter="dev,uat,stage"
--label-filter="rel-02"
--force-replace=true
Note: Even though you're setting labelswith this command, you can still target changesets using both context-filter and label-filter.
Note: The username and password attributes are not required for connections and systems which use alternate means of authentication. Also, you can specify database credentials as part of the url attribute.
Parameters
Global parameters
Attribute | Definition | Requirements |
| Your Liquibase Pro license key | Required |
Command parameters
Attribute | Definition | Requirements |
| The root changelog | Required |
| Specifies the context(s)/label(s) to apply to the changesets you select. Case-insensitive. Separate multiple values with commas (equivalent to | Required |
| The name of the author for the changeset. Supports | Optional |
| The changeset ID from the changelog. | Optional |
| The path to the changelog containing the changeset you want to target. For example, you may have a root changelog (root.sql) and a child changelog (child.sql). To target a specific changeset in child.sql, specify --changeset-path=child.sql. If root.sql uses include, includeAll, or sqlFile to reference child.sql, you must also specify --changelog-file=root.sql (file and path are different). If root.sql does not reference child.sql, you must also specify --changelog-file=child.sql (file and path are the same). If you only have one changelog, then --changelog-file and --changeset-path must also be the same.
| Optional |
| Specifies the changeset contexts to match. Contexts are tags you can add to changesets to control which changesets are executed in any particular migration run. Note: If you use Liquibase 4.23.0 or earlier, use the syntax | Optional |
| Specifies which database type a changeset is to be used for. See valid database type names on | Optional |
| Name of the default catalog to use for the database connection | Optional |
| Name of the default schema to use for the database connection. If Note: In the properties file and Note: In Liquibase 4.12.0 and later, you can use mixed-case schema names if you set | Optional |
| The JDBC driver class | Optional |
| The JDBC driver properties file | Optional |
| If | Optional |
| Specifies the changeset labels to match. Labels are tags you can add to changesets to control which changesets will be executed in any migration run. | Optional |
| Password to connect to the target database. Tip: It is a best practice to store sensitive data in a Secrets Management tool with Liquibase Pro. | Optional |
| The JDBC database connection URL. | Optional |
| Username to connect to the target database. Tip: It is a best practice to store sensitive data in a Secrets Management tool with Liquibase Pro. | Optional |
Output
When successful, the set-labels command produces the following output:
* Changelog file 'changelog.xml' modified successfully.
Liquibase command 'set-labels' was executed successfully.
If you specify an invalid value for the dbms argument:
Mismatched dbms for changeset 'createPrimaryTable::Liquibase Pro User::changelog.xml'
When there is an ignored changeset:
Ignoring changeset 'createSecondaryTable::Liquibase Pro User::changelog.xml'
When there is nothing to modify:
* Changelog file 'changelog.xml' was not modified.