GoogleContainerTools/skaffold · error

marshaling config: %w

Error message

marshaling config: %w

What it means

Fires when the in-memory global/context config object cannot be serialized to YAML by skaffold's yaml.Marshal while preparing output for `skaffold config list`. This indicates the config struct contains a value the YAML marshaller cannot handle, not a bad config file on disk.

Source

Thrown at cmd/skaffold/app/cmd/config/list.go:40

	"io"

	"github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/v2/pkg/skaffold/config"
	"github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/v2/pkg/skaffold/yaml"
)

func List(ctx context.Context, out io.Writer) error {
	var configYaml []byte
	if showAll {
		cfg, err := config.ReadConfigFile(configFile)
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
		if cfg == nil || (cfg.Global == nil && len(cfg.ContextConfigs) == 0) { // empty config
			return nil
		}
		configYaml, err = yaml.Marshal(&cfg)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("marshaling config: %w", err)
		}
	} else {
		contextConfig, err := getConfigForKubectx()
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
		if contextConfig == nil {
			fmt.Fprintf(out, "No config found for сurrent context %q\n", kubecontext)
			return nil
		}
		configYaml, err = yaml.Marshal(&contextConfig)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("marshaling config: %w", err)
		}
	}

	fmt.Fprintf(out, "skaffold config: %s\n", configFile)
	out.Write(configYaml)

View on GitHub (pinned to a1189de023)

Solutions

1. Re-run `skaffold config list` to rule out transient state; inspect the config file for unusual or manually injected values
2. Check the skaffold config file (~/.skaffold/config) for corrupted entries and fix or delete them
3. If reproducible, report the issue with the config contents (redacted) to the skaffold maintainers, as this is an internal marshalling failure

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at cmd/skaffold/app/cmd/config/list.go:40 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of GoogleContainerTools/skaffold@a1189de023 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2ef6796a6853549f. Report an issue: GitHub.