GoogleContainerTools/skaffold · error

no valid tagger found for artifact

Error message

no valid tagger found for artifact: %q

What it means

TaggerMux dispatches tag generation per artifact by looking up a Tagger in a map keyed by image name. This error means the requested artifact's ImageName was never registered in that map when the mux was built, so no tagger can produce a tag for it. It is thrown because the mux is constructed from the pipelines' artifact lists and only knows those exact image names.

Solutions

1. Verify the artifact's ImageName exactly matches an artifact defined in skaffold.yaml (case- and tag-sensitive, no :tag suffix)
2. Rebuild the TaggerMux via NewTaggerMux with the same RunContext that contains the artifact
3. Add the missing artifact to the skaffold.yaml build.artifacts list

Example fix

// before
mux, _ := tag.NewTaggerMux(runCtx) // built from config A
tag, err := mux.GenerateTag(ctx, latest.Artifact{ImageName: "my-app"}) // not in config A

// after
mux, _ := tag.NewTaggerMux(runCtxWithMyApp) // run context that defines my-app
tag, err := mux.GenerateTag(ctx, latest.Artifact{ImageName: "my-app"})

func artifactHasTagger(mux tag.Tagger, img string) bool {
    if tm, ok := mux.(*tag.TaggerMux); ok {
        return tm.HasTagger(img)
    }
    return true
}
// call before GenerateTag; skip/log artifacts that fail the check

if tm, ok := mux.(*tag.TaggerMux); ok { /* tm is *tag.TaggerMux; check image membership */ }

img, err := mux.GenerateTag(ctx, artifact)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "no valid tagger found for artifact") {
        // fall back to sha256 tagger for unregistered images
        return fallbackTagger.GenerateTag(ctx, artifact)
    }
    return "", err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling GenerateTag(ctx, image) with a latest.Artifact whose ImageName does not exactly match any artifact ImageName in the RunContext pipelines used to build the mux — e.g. an image built outside the skaffold config, a renamed image, or a mux reused across different run contexts.

Common situations: Image name typos in kustomize/helm manifests vs skaffold.yaml; artifacts generated dynamically at runtime; reusing a TaggerMux built from one config with artifacts from another; profile overrides that rename images.

Related errors

• creating tagger
• getting tagger
• multiple components with name
• unknown component for custom template
• unknown tagger for strategy %+v

AI-assisted analysis of GoogleContainerTools/skaffold@a1189de023 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1b8490cb63584abe. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at pkg/skaffold/tag/tagger_mux.go:35

package tag

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"

	"github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/v2/pkg/skaffold/graph"
	"github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/v2/pkg/skaffold/runner/runcontext"
	"github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/v2/pkg/skaffold/schema/latest"
)

type TaggerMux struct {
	byImageName map[string]Tagger
}

func (t *TaggerMux) GenerateTag(ctx context.Context, image latest.Artifact) (string, error) {
	tagger, found := t.byImageName[image.ImageName]
	if !found {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("no valid tagger found for artifact: %q", image.ImageName)
	}
	return tagger.GenerateTag(ctx, image)
}

func NewTaggerMux(runCtx *runcontext.RunContext) (Tagger, error) {
	pipelines := runCtx.GetPipelines()
	m := make(map[string]Tagger)
	for _, p := range pipelines {
		t, err := getTagger(runCtx, &p.Build.TagPolicy)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("creating tagger: %w", err)
		}
		for _, a := range p.Build.Artifacts {
			m[a.ImageName] = t
		}
	}
	return &TaggerMux{byImageName: m}, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to a1189de023)