GoogleContainerTools/skaffold · error

packaged.appVersion template: %w

Error message

packaged.appVersion template: %w

What it means

Wraps util.ExpandEnvTemplate failure when expanding releases[].packaged.appVersion during chart packaging. Same template mechanics as packaged.version but applied to the appVersion flag passed to `helm package`.

Source

Thrown at pkg/skaffold/deploy/helm/helm.go:690

			return "", fmt.Errorf("tempdir: %w", err)
		}
		tmpDir = t
	}

	args := []string{"package", r.ChartPath, "--destination", tmpDir}

	if r.Packaged.Version != "" {
		v, err := util.ExpandEnvTemplate(r.Packaged.Version, nil)
		if err != nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("packaged.version template: %w", err)
		}
		args = append(args, "--version", v)
	}

	if r.Packaged.AppVersion != "" {
		av, err := util.ExpandEnvTemplate(r.Packaged.AppVersion, nil)
		if err != nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("packaged.appVersion template: %w", err)
		}
		args = append(args, "--app-version", av)
	}

	buf := &bytes.Buffer{}

	if err := helm.Exec(ctx, h, buf, false, nil, args...); err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("package chart into a .tgz archive: %v: %w", args, err)
	}

	output := strings.TrimSpace(buf.String())
	idx := strings.Index(output, tmpDir)

	if idx == -1 {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("unable to find %s in output: %s", tmpDir, output)
	}

	return output[idx:], nil

View on GitHub (pinned to a1189de023)

Solutions

1. Export the referenced env variable
2. Use a literal appVersion string
3. Keep appVersion and version templates consistent so one export covers both

Example fix

// before
packaged:
  appVersion: "{{.APP_REV}}"
// after
export APP_REV=42
skaffold run

tpl := release.Packaged.AppVersion
if strings.Contains(tpl, "{{") {
  if _, err := texttemplate.New("t").Parse(tpl); err != nil { return err }
  for _, m := range varRegex.FindAllStringSubmatch(tpl, -1) {
    if os.Getenv(m[1]) == "" { return fmt.Errorf("env %s unset", m[1]) }
  }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Deploy with packaged.appVersion containing {{.VAR}} for an unset variable or malformed template syntax.

Common situations: Same as packaged.version: missing CI env vars, syntax typos, stray characters in the app version.

Related errors

• cannot parse the release name template: %w
• packaged.version template: %w
• collecting helm releases namespaces: %w
• cannot parse the release namespace template: %w
• strings.Join(errMsgs, "\n") (joined helm cleanup error messa

AI-assisted analysis of GoogleContainerTools/skaffold@a1189de023 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6e44e74fd74bf5a4. Report an issue: GitHub.