GoogleContainerTools/skaffold · error

getting git status: %w

Error message

getting git status: %w

What it means

After resolving the commit ref, the gitCommit Tagger (unless ignoreChanges is set) runs `git status . --porcelain` in the workspace to detect uncommitted changes and append '-dirty'. If that git status command itself fails, the error is wrapped as 'getting git status:'.

Source

Thrown at pkg/skaffold/tag/git_commit.go:76

		prefix:        prefix,
		runGitFn:      runGitFn,
		ignoreChanges: ignoreChanges,
	}, nil
}

// GenerateTag generates a tag from the git commit.
func (t *GitCommit) GenerateTag(ctx context.Context, image latest.Artifact) (string, error) {
	ref, err := t.runGitFn(ctx, image.Workspace)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("unable to find git commit: %w", err)
	}

	ref = sanitizeTag(ref)

	if !t.ignoreChanges {
		changes, err := runGit(ctx, image.Workspace, "status", ".", "--porcelain")
		if err != nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("getting git status: %w", err)
		}

		if len(changes) > 0 {
			return fmt.Sprintf("%s%s-dirty", t.prefix, ref), nil
		}
	}

	return t.prefix + ref, nil
}

// sanitizeTag takes a git tag and converts it to a docker tag by removing
// all the characters that are not allowed by docker.
func sanitizeTag(tag string) string {
	// Replace unsupported characters with `_`
	sanitized := regexp.MustCompile(`[^a-zA-Z0-9-._]`).ReplaceAllString(tag, `_`)

	// Remove leading `-`s and `.`s
	prefixSuffix := regexp.MustCompile(`([-.]*)(.*)`).FindStringSubmatch(sanitized)

View on GitHub (pinned to a1189de023)

Solutions

1. Add the workspace to git's safe directory list: `git config --global --add safe.directory /path/to/workspace`
2. Set ignoreChanges: true in the gitCommit tagger config if dirty-state detection is not needed
3. Remove stale .git/index.lock and repair the repo (`git status` locally to confirm it works)
4. Install git in the build/CI image and ensure PATH includes it

Example fix

// before
{"tagger": {"git_Commit": {"variant": "CommitSha"}}}
// after
{"tagger": {"git_Commit": {"variant": "CommitSha", "ignoreChanges": true}}}

cmd := exec.Command("git", "-C", workspace, "status", ".", "--porcelain")
if err := cmd.Run(); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("git status will fail in tagger: %w", err)
}

tag, err := tagger.GenerateTag(ctx, image)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "getting git status") {
    log.Warn("git status failed; retrying with ignoreChanges tagger")
    return dirtyTolerantTagger.GenerateTag(ctx, image)
}

When it happens

Trigger: GenerateTag called on a workspace where `git status` fails — e.g. the directory is inside a git repo whose ownership differs from the current user ('dubious ownership' safe.directory error), a corrupt .git index, or git missing from PATH.

Common situations: CI containers running as root against a workspace mounted/owned by another UID (Git's safe.directory protection); .git/index.lock leftovers from a crashed process; minimal images without git installed while ignoreChanges=false.

Related errors

• %q is not a valid git tagger variant
• unable to find git commit: %w
• getting tags: %w
• bad timezone provided: %q, error: %s
• parsing template: %w

AI-assisted analysis of GoogleContainerTools/skaffold@a1189de023 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ff24fc2f20914378. Report an issue: GitHub.