argoproj/argo-workflows · error

--completed and --running cannot be used together

Error message

--completed and --running cannot be used together

What it means

listWorkflows builds a label selector for 'argo list'. The --completed and --running flags map to mutually exclusive label requirements (completed=true vs completed=false), so specifying both is contradictory and rejected before querying the API.

Source

Thrown at cmd/argo/commands/list.go:146

	return command
}

func listWorkflows(ctx context.Context, serviceClient workflowpkg.WorkflowServiceClient, flags listFlags) (wfv1.Workflows, error) {
	listOpts := &metav1.ListOptions{
		Limit: flags.chunkSize,
	}
	labelSelector, err := labels.Parse(flags.labels)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	if len(flags.status) != 0 {
		req, _ := labels.NewRequirement(common.LabelKeyPhase, selection.In, flags.status)
		if req != nil {
			labelSelector = labelSelector.Add(*req)
		}
	}
	if flags.completed && flags.running {
		return nil, errors.New("--completed and --running cannot be used together")
	}
	if flags.completed {
		req, _ := labels.NewRequirement(common.LabelKeyCompleted, selection.Equals, []string{"true"})
		labelSelector = labelSelector.Add(*req)
	}
	if flags.running {
		req, _ := labels.NewRequirement(common.LabelKeyCompleted, selection.NotEquals, []string{"true"})
		labelSelector = labelSelector.Add(*req)
	}
	if flags.resubmitted {
		req, _ := labels.NewRequirement(common.LabelKeyPreviousWorkflowName, selection.Exists, []string{})
		labelSelector = labelSelector.Add(*req)
	}
	listOpts.LabelSelector = labelSelector.String()
	listOpts.FieldSelector = flags.fields
	var workflows wfv1.Workflows
	for {
		logging.RequireLoggerFromContext(ctx).WithField("listOpts", listOpts).Debug(ctx, "Listing workflows")

View on GitHub (pinned to 35bff19146)

Solutions

1. Use only one of --completed or --running.
2. Drop both flags to list all workflows regardless of completion state.
3. Sanitize flags in wrapper scripts so they are mutually exclusive.

Example fix

// before
argo list --completed --running
// after
argo list --completed

if [ -n "$COMPLETED" ] && [ -n "$RUNNING" ]; then
  echo '--completed and --running are mutually exclusive'; exit 1;
fi

if ! argo list --completed --running 2>err.txt; then
  grep -q 'cannot be used together' err.txt && drop_one_flag
fi

When it happens

Trigger: Running 'argo list --completed --running' or invoking listWorkflows programmatically (e.g. from retry/stop/resubmit helpers) with both flags set in the parsed options.

Common situations: Scripts merging flag sets that end up with both; users thinking the flags filter different dimensions rather than opposite phases of completion; alias configurations appending both flags.

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

• ${e.Usage()}
• unable to parse node field selector '%s': %w
• unable to parse node field selector '%s': %w
• unable to parse node field selector '%s': %w
• unable to parse node field selector '%s': %w

AI-assisted analysis of argoproj/argo-workflows@35bff19146 (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/68602545897bf66e. Report an issue: GitHub.