diff --git a/pkg/stages/stages.go b/pkg/stages/stages.go
index 810cca7..19074bb 100644
--- a/pkg/stages/stages.go
+++ b/pkg/stages/stages.go
@@ -92,6 +92,7 @@ func GetKairosReleaseStage(sis values.System, log types.KairosLogger) []schema.S
 		if we have the original needed fields we can recreate the rest of the fields if needed so....
 	*/
 
+	IMAGE_LABEL := ""
 	idLike := fmt.Sprintf("kairos-%s-%s-%s", config.DefaultConfig.Variant, sis.Distro.String(), sis.Version)
 	flavor := sis.Distro.String()
 	flavorRelease := sis.Version
@@ -110,6 +111,9 @@ func GetKairosReleaseStage(sis values.System, log types.KairosLogger) []schema.S
 			log.Debugf("Failed to split the flavor %s", flavor)
 		}
 	}
+	// "24.04-standard-amd64-generic-v3.2.4-36-g24ca209-k3sv1.32.0-k3s1"
+	// We are not doing the k3s software version here
+	imageLabel := fmt.Sprintf("%s-%s-%s-%s-%s", flavorRelease, config.DefaultConfig.Variant, sis.Arch.String(), config.DefaultConfig.Model, config.DefaultConfig.FrameworkVersion)
 
 	return []schema.Stage{
 		{
@@ -130,6 +134,7 @@ func GetKairosReleaseStage(sis values.System, log types.KairosLogger) []schema.S
 				"KAIROS_BUG_REPORT_URL":   "https://github.com/kairos-io/kairos/issues",
 				"KAIROS_HOME_URL":         "https://github.com/kairos-io/kairos",
 				"KAIROS_RELEASE":          config.DefaultConfig.FrameworkVersion, // Move to use the framework version, bump framework to be in sync with Kairos, used by upgrades
+				"KAIROS_IMAGE_LABEL":      imageLabel,                            // Used by raw image creation...very bad
 			},
 			EnvironmentFile: "/etc/kairos-release",
 		},
diff --git a/pkg/validation/validate.go b/pkg/validation/validate.go
index 37b2e55..3e73bde 100644
--- a/pkg/validation/validate.go
+++ b/pkg/validation/validate.go
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ package validation
 import (
 	"fmt"
 	"github.com/hashicorp/go-multierror"
+	"github.com/joho/godotenv"
 	"github.com/kairos-io/kairos-init/pkg/config"
 	"github.com/kairos-io/kairos-init/pkg/system"
 	"github.com/kairos-io/kairos-init/pkg/values"
@@ -96,6 +97,37 @@ func (v *Validator) Validate() error {
 		}
 	}
 
+	// Validate all needed keys are stored in kairos-release
+	keys := []string{
+		"KAIROS_ID",
+		"KAIROS_ID_LIKE", // Maybe not critical? Same as name below
+		"KAIROS_NAME",
+		"KAIROS_VERSION",
+		"KAIROS_ARCH",
+		"KAIROS_TARGETARCH", // Not critical, same as ARCH above
+		"KAIROS_FLAVOR",
+		"KAIROS_FLAVOR_RELEASE",
+		"KAIROS_FAMILY",
+		"KAIROS_MODEL",
+		"KAIROS_VARIANT",
+		"KAIROS_REGISTRY_AND_ORG",
+		"KAIROS_BUG_REPORT_URL", // Not critical
+		"KAIROS_HOME_URL",       // Not critical
+		"KAIROS_RELEASE",
+		"KAIROS_IMAGE_LABEL",
+	}
+
+	vals, err := godotenv.Read("/etc/kairos/kairos-release")
+	if err != nil {
+		multi = multierror.Append(multi, fmt.Errorf("could not open kairos-release file"))
+	} else {
+		for _, key := range keys {
+			if vals[key] == "" {
+				multi = multierror.Append(multi, fmt.Errorf("key %s not found or empty in kairos-release", key))
+			}
+		}
+	}
+
 	// Check if initrd contains the necessary binaries
 	// Do it at the ends as its the slowest check
 	if !config.DefaultConfig.TrustedBoot {