argoproj/argo-workflows · error

${e.Usage()}

Error message

${e.Usage()}

What it means

Returned by EnumFlagValue.Set when the user passes a CLI flag value that is not one of the enum's AllowedValues (e.g. --output for get/list commands). The text of the error is the generated usage line listing the allowed choices.

Source

Thrown at cmd/argo/commands/common/flags.go:33

type EnumFlagValue struct {
	AllowedValues []string
	Value         string
}

func (e *EnumFlagValue) Usage() string {
	return fmt.Sprintf("One of: %s", strings.Join(e.AllowedValues, "|"))
}

func (e *EnumFlagValue) String() string {
	return e.Value
}

func (e *EnumFlagValue) Set(v string) error {
	if slices.Contains(e.AllowedValues, v) {
		e.Value = v
		return nil
	}
	return errors.New(e.Usage())
}

func (e *EnumFlagValue) Type() string {
	return "string"
}

var _ pflag.Value = &EnumFlagValue{}

func NewPrintWorkflowOutputValue(value string) EnumFlagValue {
	return EnumFlagValue{
		AllowedValues: []string{"name", "json", "yaml", "wide"},
		Value:         value,
	}
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 35bff19146)

Solutions

1. Read the usage text in the error and pick one of the listed allowed values.
2. Fix casing/typos (values are matched exactly).
3. Run argo <cmd> --help to see the current accepted values for your version.

Example fix

// before
argo list --output yamlx
// after
argo list --output yaml

ALLOWED=("json" "yaml" "wide" "name")
if [[ ! " ${ALLOWED[*]} " == *" $FMT "* ]]; then echo "bad --output: $FMT"; exit 1; fi

out=$(argo list --output "$FMT" 2>&1) || {
  echo "$out" # usage text lists allowed values
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a value not in the enum to any flag backed by EnumFlagValue, e.g. --logformat with a typo, or an invalid --gloglevel, or unknown output format.

Common situations: Typos like --output yamlx; case mismatches (JSON vs json); deprecated values removed in newer CLI versions; scripts carrying flags from older releases.

Understand the failure class

Background: "unknown output mode", "invalid value for flag", "expects true/false": fixing invalid flag value errors in CLI tools — this error's family across 24 libraries.

Related errors

• --completed and --running cannot be used together
• 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/4d00514caeb73fff. Report an issue: GitHub.