diff --git a/cred/VERSION b/cred/VERSION
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d028a41
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cred/VERSION
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+## deployable containers have a semantic and build tag
+# semantic version tag: major.minor
+# build version tag: timestamp
+VER=2.0.0
+TAGS="${VER} ${VER}-$(date -u +"%Y%m%dT%H%M%S")"
+unset VER