GoogleContainerTools/jib · error · GradleException

container.volumes is not an absolute Unix-style path: ${inva

Error message

container.volumes is not an absolute Unix-style path: ${invalidVolume}

What it means

Each path in container.volumes must be an absolute Unix-style path because it becomes a VOLUME declaration in the image. Jib throws InvalidContainerVolumeException for relative or non-Unix values, which the Gradle task surfaces as this GradleException including the offending volume path.

Source

Thrown at jib-gradle-plugin/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/tools/jib/gradle/BuildImageTask.java:146

    } catch (InvalidContainerizingModeException ex) {
      throw new GradleException(
          "invalid value for containerizingMode: " + ex.getInvalidContainerizingMode(), ex);

    } catch (InvalidWorkingDirectoryException ex) {
      throw new GradleException(
          "container.workingDirectory is not an absolute Unix-style path: "
              + ex.getInvalidPathValue(),
          ex);
    } catch (InvalidPlatformException ex) {
      throw new GradleException(
          "from.platforms contains a platform configuration that is missing required values or has invalid values: "
              + ex.getMessage()
              + ": "
              + ex.getInvalidPlatform(),
          ex);

    } catch (InvalidContainerVolumeException ex) {
      throw new GradleException(
          "container.volumes is not an absolute Unix-style path: " + ex.getInvalidVolume(), ex);

    } catch (InvalidFilesModificationTimeException ex) {
      throw new GradleException(
          "container.filesModificationTime should be an ISO 8601 date-time (see "
              + "DateTimeFormatter.ISO_DATE_TIME) or special keyword \"EPOCH_PLUS_SECOND\": "
              + ex.getInvalidFilesModificationTime(),
          ex);

    } catch (InvalidCreationTimeException ex) {
      throw new GradleException(
          "container.creationTime should be an ISO 8601 date-time (see "
              + "DateTimeFormatter.ISO_DATE_TIME) or a special keyword (\"EPOCH\", "
              + "\"USE_CURRENT_TIMESTAMP\"): "
              + ex.getInvalidCreationTime(),
          ex);

    } catch (JibPluginExtensionException ex) {

View on GitHub (pinned to fb949e2676)

Solutions

  1. Prefix each volume with a forward slash, e.g. volumes = ['/data', '/logs'].
  2. Remove any Windows drive/backslash paths and use Unix paths.
  3. Drop invalid/unnecessary volume entries.

Example fix

// before
jib {
  container { volumes = ['data'] }
}
// after
jib {
  container { volumes = ['/data'] }
}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

jib.container.volumes.each { v ->
  if (!(v ==~ '^/.*')) {
    throw new GradleException("Volume must be an absolute Unix path, got: $v")
  }
}

Try / catch

try {
  tasks.named('jib').get().execute()
} catch (GradleException e) {
  if (e.message?.startsWith('container.volumes is not')) {
    logger.error("Fix volume paths (must start with '/'): ${e.message}")
  }
  throw e
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Adding a volume like 'data' or 'C:\\data' to jib.container.volumes and running a jib build task.

Common situations: Forgetting the leading slash when listing mount points; Windows-style separators; converting a Dockerfile with relative VOLUME entries; programmatic config built from user input without normalization.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid value" and "allowed values are" config errors: what your library rejected and how to fix it — this error's family across 41 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of GoogleContainerTools/jib@fb949e2676 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dd8f2970d0b93fca. Report an issue: GitHub.