GoogleContainerTools/skaffold · warning

parsing semver: %w

Error message

parsing semver: %w

What it means

ParseVersion converts Skaffold version strings into a semver.Version, stripping a leading 'v'. If the remaining string is not valid semantic version syntax, the underlying semver.Parse error is wrapped as 'parsing semver'. It is used when checking pre-release versions and the latest available release.

Source

Thrown at pkg/skaffold/version/version.go:94

// UserAgentWithClient returns a conformant value for HTTP `User-Agent` headers that includes
// the client value provided with the `--user` flag.  If there is no client value, then the value will be equivalent
// to `UserAgent()`.  Otherwise it is of the form `skaffold/<version> (<os>/<arch>) <client>`, and the version
// will be omitted if not available.
// Use UserAgentWithClient method to record requests from skaffold CLI users vs
// other clients.
func UserAgentWithClient() string {
	if client == "" {
		return UserAgent()
	}
	return fmt.Sprintf("%s %s", UserAgent(), client)
}

func ParseVersion(version string) (semver.Version, error) {
	// Strip the leading 'v' in our version strings
	version = strings.TrimSpace(version)
	v, err := semver.Parse(strings.TrimLeft(version, "v"))
	if err != nil {
		return semver.Version{}, fmt.Errorf("parsing semver: %w", err)
	}
	return v, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to a1189de023)

Solutions

1. Check the input string with `skaffold version` or the release tag; ensure it is valid semver (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH)
2. Install an official Skaffold release whose `skaffold version` prints proper semver
3. Trim stray characters/newlines from version strings before parsing
4. If parsing third-party versions, normalize them (pad missing components) before calling ParseVersion

Example fix

// before
ParseVersion("1.39")              // parsing semver: ...
// after
ParseVersion("v1.39.2")           // OK -> 1.39.2

func parseSafe(version string) (semver.Version, error) {
    v := strings.TrimSpace(strings.TrimPrefix(strings.TrimSpace(version), "v"))
    parts := strings.Split(v, ".")
    if len(parts) < 3 {
        return semver.Version{}, fmt.Errorf("not full semver: %q", version)
    }
    return version.ParseVersion(version)
}

func looksLikeSemver(s string) bool {
    t := strings.TrimPrefix(strings.TrimSpace(s), "v")
    parts := strings.Split(t, ".")
    return len(parts) >= 3 && !strings.ContainsAny(t, " \t\n")
}

v, err := version.ParseVersion(input)
if err != nil {
    // log raw input for inspection; treat as unknown version, skip comparison
}

When it happens

Trigger: ParseVersion receives a string like '', 'not-a-version', '1.39', 'v1.2.3.4', or output of `skaffold version` / a GitHub release tag that isn't strictly semver (missing patch, extra characters, whitespace-embedded junk).

Common situations: Custom/local builds of Skaffold reporting non-semver version strings (e.g. 'v0.0.0-unknown' variants or git descriptions); proxy/mirror returning an HTML error page where a version JSON was expected; parsing third-party tool versions with looser schemes.

Related errors

• parsing latest version from GCS: %w
• parsing current semver, skipping update check: %w
• parsing manifests file into manifest list object: %w
• parsing image name for registry: %w
• removing unused default args: %w

AI-assisted analysis of GoogleContainerTools/skaffold@a1189de023 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7b09373af81dafd5. Report an issue: GitHub.