diff --git a/cmd/agent.go b/cmd/agent.go
index e75ac8cb1..d2a7b4bfa 100644
--- a/cmd/agent.go
+++ b/cmd/agent.go
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import (
 	"fmt"
 	"os"
 	"os/signal"
+	"strings"
 	"syscall"
 	"time"
 
@@ -138,3 +139,17 @@ func handleReload() {
 	}
 	//Config reloading will also reload Notification settings
 }
+
+// UnmarshalTags is a utility function which takes a slice of strings in
+// key=value format and returns them as a tag mapping.
+func UnmarshalTags(tags []string) (map[string]string, error) {
+	result := make(map[string]string)
+	for _, tag := range tags {
+		parts := strings.SplitN(tag, "=", 2)
+		if len(parts) != 2 || len(parts[0]) == 0 {
+			return nil, fmt.Errorf("Invalid tag: '%s'", tag)
+		}
+		result[parts[0]] = parts[1]
+	}
+	return result, nil
+}
diff --git a/cmd/agent_test.go b/cmd/agent_test.go
index ccaad54bd..0c98b902b 100644
--- a/cmd/agent_test.go
+++ b/cmd/agent_test.go
@@ -23,13 +23,13 @@ func getEnvWithDefault() string {
 	return ea
 }
 
-func Test_unmarshalTags(t *testing.T) {
+func TestUnmarshalTags(t *testing.T) {
 	tagPairs := []string{
 		"tag1=val1",
 		"tag2=val2",
 	}
 
-	tags, err := unmarshalTags(tagPairs)
+	tags, err := UnmarshalTags(tagPairs)
 
 	if err != nil {
 		t.Fatalf("err: %s", err)