The present disclosure is directed to adaptive networking policy with user defined fields and includes one or more processors and one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media coupled to the one or more processors and comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause one or more components to perform operations including generating a user defined attribute (UDA) value corresponding to a set of attributes; receiving, at a network device, a packet having one or more packet conditions; determining that the one or more packet conditions of the packet match the set of attributes of the UDA value; assigning a UDA tag to the packet, wherein the UDA tag corresponds to the UDA value and is configured for chaining with one or more other UDA tags; and taking an action on the packet based on the UDA tag.