abiosoft/colima · error

invalid downloader %q: must be one of %s, %s

Error message

invalid downloader %q: must be one of %s, %s

What it means

ValidateDownloader normalizes the downloader choice case-insensitively and accepts exactly two values: DownloaderNative ('native', the Go built-in) and DownloaderCurl ('curl'). Anything else — 'wget', 'curl' with trailing whitespace, or the empty string — reaches the default branch and is rejected, quoting both the offending value and the allowed set.

Source

Thrown at util/downloader/curl.go:31

const (
	// DownloaderNative uses Go's native HTTP client
	DownloaderNative = "native"
	// DownloaderCurl uses the curl command (honors .curlrc)
	DownloaderCurl = "curl"

	envDownloader = "COLIMA_DOWNLOADER"
)

// ValidateDownloader validates the downloader value (case-insensitive).
// Returns the normalized value or an error if invalid.
func ValidateDownloader(v string) (string, error) {
	switch strings.ToLower(v) {
	case DownloaderNative:
		return DownloaderNative, nil
	case DownloaderCurl:
		return DownloaderCurl, nil
	default:
		return "", fmt.Errorf("invalid downloader %q: must be one of %s, %s", v, DownloaderNative, DownloaderCurl)
	}
}

// curlDownloader handles downloads using the curl command
type curlDownloader struct{}

// Download downloads a file using curl
func (c *curlDownloader) Download(r Request, destPath string) error {
	// check if curl is available
	if _, err := exec.LookPath("curl"); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("curl not found in PATH: %w", err)
	}

	args := []string{
		"-fSL",    // fail on HTTP errors, show errors, follow redirects
		"-C", "-", // resume if possible (auto-detect offset)
		"--progress-bar", // show progress bar
		"-o", destPath,   // output file

View on GitHub (pinned to c3a5f9184d)

Solutions

1. Set the value to exactly 'native' or 'curl' (any casing)
2. Unset COLIMA_DOWNLOADER entirely to use the built-in default
3. Inspect for hidden characters: printf '%s' "$COLIMA_DOWNLOADER" | od -c

func isValidDownloader(v string) bool {
	_, err := ValidateDownloader(strings.TrimSpace(v))
	return err == nil
}

When it happens

Trigger: COLIMA_DOWNLOADER is set to an unsupported value (e.g. wget) or a downloader flag carries a typo, and any colima code path that downloads artifacts runs.

Common situations: Copy-pasted environment snippets from tutorials suggesting wget; trailing whitespace or quotes inside env values; stale values from older versions.

Related errors

• curl not found in PATH: %w
• unknown runner type: %s (valid options: docker, ramalama)
• 'colima model' requires docker runtime, current runtime is %
• error loading instance config: %w
• 'colima model' requires krunkit VM type for GPU access, curr

AI-assisted analysis of abiosoft/colima@c3a5f9184d (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1f0358c2b90d0fda. Report an issue: GitHub.