GoogleContainerTools/skaffold · error

kustomization parse error in %v: %w

Error message

kustomization parse error in %v: %w

What it means

DependenciesForKustomization reads a kustomization.yaml (or kustomize.yml/kustomization.yml/Kustomization) and unmarshals it into the kustomization struct. If YAML parsing fails, it reports 'kustomization parse error in <path>'. Recursion continues into bases/resources/components after a successful parse.

Source

Thrown at pkg/skaffold/render/generate/util.go:103

// provided working dir, and collects them into a list of files to be passed
// to the file watcher.
func DependenciesForKustomization(dir string) ([]string, error) {
	var deps []string

	path, err := FindKustomizationConfig(dir)
	if err != nil {
		// No kustomization config found so assume it's remote and stop traversing
		return deps, nil
	}

	buf, err := os.ReadFile(path)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	content := kustomization{}
	if err := yaml.Unmarshal(buf, &content); err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("kustomization parse error in %v: %w", path, err)
	}

	deps = append(deps, path)

	candidates := append(content.Bases, content.Resources...)
	candidates = append(candidates, content.Components...)

	for _, candidate := range candidates {
		// If the file doesn't exist locally, we can assume it's a remote file and
		// skip it, since we can't monitor remote files. Kustomize itself will
		// handle invalid/missing files.
		local, mode := pathExistsLocally(candidate, dir)
		if !local {
			continue
		}

		if mode.IsDir() {
			candidateDeps, err := DependenciesForKustomization(filepath.Join(dir, candidate))

View on GitHub (pinned to a1189de023)

Solutions

1. Validate the file: kustomize build <dir> (or kubectl kustomize <dir>) to see the YAML error
2. Fix indentation/tabs and ensure list fields (resources, bases, components) are YAML lists
3. Remove or correct fields unsupported by Skaffold's bundled yaml schema version
4. Restore the file if it was truncated or auto-merged incorrectly

Example fix

// before (invalid)
resources: base
// after
resources:
  - base

kustomize build ./deploy/overlays/dev > /dev/null || echo 'kustomization invalid'

if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "kustomization parse error") {
    // parse the path from the message and run kustomize build there for the YAML detail
}

When it happens

Trigger: A kustomization file under a path listed in kustomizeDependencies is malformed YAML or contains fields of the wrong type, so yaml.Unmarshal fails during dependency discovery (also recursed through nested bases).

Common situations: Hand-edited kustomization.yaml with bad indentation or tabs; wrong type for a list field (resources given as a string); kustomization written for a much newer kustomize schema with unsupported keys; truncated file from a failed merge.

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• parsing skaffold config: %w
• unmarshalling global skaffold config: %w
• reading Kubernetes YAML: %w
• no Kustomization configuration found in directory: %s
• failed to apply setter to file %s, err: %v

AI-assisted analysis of GoogleContainerTools/skaffold@a1189de023 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c1e82edcee1f010f. Report an issue: GitHub.