The present invention discloses a solution for managing policy artifacts using a configuration management database (CMDB). Policies can be associated with a number of information technology resources, such as servers, businesses applications and the like. The solution permits automatic tagging of the policies (auto-discovery) as they enter the CMDB. For example, when a policy is added, it can be compared against a set of tagging rules. Multiple rules can match a new policy, which results in multiple tags being added for the policy. The policy specific tags can be optionally indexed for faster searching. Once indexed, the CMDB can support policy and policy tag based queries. In one embodiment, policy artifacts can be manipulated within a CMDB tool in a manner consistent with how the CMDB tool handles configuration items (CIs).