Abstract: The present invention provides a solution to the needs described in the present application through a system and method of using Virtual Labels in conjunction with an existing software configuration management system. The present invention minimizes the identification or meta-data which needs to be written to a source database or source repository whenever a label for a new version of source code needs to be created thereby minimizing the file storage requirements and the network bandwidth for the transmission of replications of the label. The virtual label system makes use of attribute data connected to a label object to record identification meta-data associated with a particular snap-shot of the source code, whereby the attribute data is subsequently used for program builds/releases/new branch development without the need to have the meta-data recorded in every component source file.