GoogleContainerTools/skaffold · error

getting pods for namespace %q: %w

Error message

getting pods for namespace %q: %w

What it means

After obtaining a client, containerHook.run lists pods in each configured namespace with client.CoreV1().Pods(ns).List. If the API list call fails, the error is wrapped as 'getting pods for namespace %q: %w'.

Source

Thrown at pkg/skaffold/hooks/container.go:103

	cli        *kubectl.CLI
	selector   containerSelector
	namespaces []string
	formatter  logger.Formatter
}

// run executes the lifecycle hook inside the target container
func (h containerHook) run(ctx context.Context, out io.Writer) error {
	errs, ctx := errgroup.WithContext(ctx)

	client, err := kubernetesclient.Client(h.cli.KubeContext)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("getting Kubernetes client: %w", err)
	}

	for _, ns := range h.namespaces {
		pods, err := client.CoreV1().Pods(ns).List(ctx, metav1.ListOptions{})
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("getting pods for namespace %q: %w", ns, err)
		}

		for _, p := range pods.Items {
			for _, c := range p.Spec.Containers {
				if matched, err := h.selector(p, c); err != nil {
					return err
				} else if !matched {
					continue
				}
				args := []string{p.Name, "--namespace", p.Namespace, "-c", c.Name, "--"}
				args = append(args, h.cfg.Command...)
				cmd := h.cli.Command(ctx, "exec", args...)
				tr, tw := io.Pipe()
				cmd.Stderr = tw
				cmd.Stdout = tw
				podName := p.Name
				containerName := c.Name
				errs.Go(func() error {

View on GitHub (pinned to a1189de023)

Solutions

1. Verify the namespace exists in the target context: kubectl get ns
2. Check connectivity/auth: kubectl --context <ctx> -n <ns> get pods
3. Fix the namespaces list in the skaffold.yaml container hook (typos, wrong context)
4. Grant RBAC: create a rolebinding allowing 'list' on 'pods' in that namespace

Example fix

// before
namespaces: ["stagging"]  // typo
// after
namespaces: ["staging"]

for _, ns := range namespaces {
    if err := exec.Command("kubectl", "--context", ctxName, "get", "ns", ns).Run(); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("namespace %q missing or inaccessible", ns)
    }
}

err := hook.Run(ctx, out)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "getting pods for namespace") {
    // transient API server errors: retry with backoff
    return retry.Do(func() error { return hook.Run(ctx, out) }, retry.Attempts(3))
}

When it happens

Trigger: run iterating h.namespaces where a Pods List call fails — namespace doesn't exist, API server unreachable, or the caller lacks RBAC permission to list pods in that namespace.

Common situations: Hook configured with a namespace not present on the cluster (typo or wrong context); disconnected VPN/offline cluster; service account without 'list pods' RBAC in the namespace; cluster API server temporarily down.

Related errors

• STATUSCHECK_DEPLOYMENT_FETCH_ERR
• could not fetch deployments: %w
• initializing pod watcher for %q: %w
• could not fetch deployed resource namespace. This might caus
• could not fetch deployed resource namespace. This might caus

AI-assisted analysis of GoogleContainerTools/skaffold@a1189de023 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cc8e9fba536f4e9f. Report an issue: GitHub.