argoproj/argo-workflows · error

cannot watch more than one workflow

Error message

cannot watch more than one workflow

What it means

`argo submit --watch` attaches a live single-workflow progress view, which only makes sense for exactly one workflow. validateOptions (cmd/argo/commands/submit.go, called from submitWorkflowFromResource and submitWorkflows) returns this error when the submission would create more than one workflow.

Source

Thrown at cmd/argo/commands/submit.go:139

func submitWorkflowsFromFile(ctx context.Context, serviceClient workflowpkg.WorkflowServiceClient, namespace string, filePaths []string, submitOpts *wfv1.SubmitOpts, cliOpts *common.CliSubmitOpts) error {
	fileContents, err := util.ReadManifest(ctx, filePaths...)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	var workflows []wfv1.Workflow
	for _, body := range fileContents {
		wfs := unmarshalWorkflows(ctx, body, cliOpts.Strict)
		workflows = append(workflows, wfs...)
	}

	return submitWorkflows(ctx, serviceClient, namespace, workflows, submitOpts, cliOpts)
}

func validateOptions(workflows []wfv1.Workflow, submitOpts *wfv1.SubmitOpts, cliOpts *common.CliSubmitOpts) error {
	if cliOpts.Watch {
		if len(workflows) > 1 {
			return errors.New("cannot watch more than one workflow")
		}
		if cliOpts.Wait {
			return errors.New("--wait cannot be combined with --watch")
		}
		if submitOpts.DryRun {
			return errors.New("--watch cannot be combined with --dry-run")
		}
		if submitOpts.ServerDryRun {
			return errors.New("--watch cannot be combined with --server-dry-run")
		}
	}

	if cliOpts.Wait {
		if submitOpts.DryRun {
			return errors.New("--wait cannot be combined with --dry-run")
		}
		if submitOpts.ServerDryRun {
			return errors.New("--wait cannot be combined with --server-dry-run")

View on GitHub (pinned to 35bff19146)

Solutions

1. Remove --watch when submitting multiple workflows (use --wait instead to wait for all)
2. Submit only one workflow with --watch
3. Split the batch into individual submits each with --watch if per-workflow watching is needed

Example fix

// before
argo submit wf1.yaml wf2.yaml --watch
// after
argo submit wf1.yaml wf2.yaml --wait

N=$(grep -c '^kind: Workflow$' combined.yaml)  # or count submitted files
if [ "$N" -gt 1 ] && echo "$FLAGS" | grep -q -- '--watch'; then
  echo "argo submit: cannot watch more than one workflow" >&2; exit 2
fi

When it happens

Trigger: `argo submit wf1.yaml wf2.yaml --watch`, submitting a multi-document YAML file, or `argo submit --from <kind>/<name>` that expands to multiple resources, with --watch set.

Common situations: Batch-submitting generated YAML files while keeping --watch from a single-file dev command; multi-template YAML from Helm/templating output watched unintentionally.

Understand the failure class

Background: "mutually exclusive" flag errors: what "can't supply both nx and xx", "--raw is not compatible with -i" and "cannot be used with" mean, and how to fix them — this error's family across 29 libraries.

Related errors

• cannot combine --from with file arguments
• --wait cannot be combined with --watch
• --watch cannot be combined with --dry-run
• --watch cannot be combined with --server-dry-run
• --wait cannot be combined with --dry-run

AI-assisted analysis of argoproj/argo-workflows@35bff19146 (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7cc8e3387546aaaf. Report an issue: GitHub.