GoogleContainerTools/skaffold · error

packaged.version template: %w

Error message

packaged.version template: %w

What it means

Wraps util.ExpandEnvTemplate failure when expanding releases[].packaged.version during chart packaging. The version string is treated as a template; invalid syntax or unset env vars abort packaging before helm package runs.

Source

Thrown at pkg/skaffold/deploy/helm/helm.go:682

// packageChart packages the chart and returns the path to the resulting chart archive
func (h *Deployer) packageChart(ctx context.Context, r latest.HelmRelease) (string, error) {
	// Allow a test to sneak a predictable path in
	tmpDir := h.pkgTmpDir

	if tmpDir == "" {
		t, err := os.MkdirTemp("", "skaffold-helm")
		if err != nil {
			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)
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to a1189de023)

Solutions

1. Export the env var used in packaged.version before running skaffold
2. Replace the template with a literal version (e.g. "1.2.3") if no templating is needed
3. Verify the template renders: `echo "{{.VERSION}}" | envsubst` mentally / test with skaffold render

Example fix

// before
packaged:
  version: "{{.GIT_TAG}}"
// after
export GIT_TAG=v1.2.3
skaffold run

tpl := release.Packaged.Version
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.version like {{.VERSION}} where VERSION is unset, or containing invalid Go template syntax (e.g. unbalanced braces).

Common situations: CI pipelines that forgot to export the version variable; semver tags inserted with stray characters; copy-paste of {{ }} templates into static values.

Related errors

• cannot parse the release name template: %w
• packaged.appVersion 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/28f62f2b02f0819c. Report an issue: GitHub.