docker/cli · error

--format is incompatible with human friendly format

Error message

--format is incompatible with human friendly format

What it means

Raised by `docker service inspect` when both --pretty and --format are supplied. --pretty forces the built-in human-friendly template and --format supplies a custom Go template; the two are mutually exclusive, so the command validates this in RunE before any API call.

Source

Thrown at cli/command/service/inspect.go:38

type inspectOptions struct {
	refs   []string
	format string
	pretty bool
}

func newInspectCommand(dockerCLI command.Cli) *cobra.Command {
	var opts inspectOptions

	cmd := &cobra.Command{
		Use:   "inspect [OPTIONS] SERVICE [SERVICE...]",
		Short: "Display detailed information on one or more services",
		Args:  cli.RequiresMinArgs(1),
		RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
			opts.refs = args

			if opts.pretty && len(opts.format) > 0 {
				return errors.New("--format is incompatible with human friendly format")
			}
			return runInspect(cmd.Context(), dockerCLI, opts)
		},
		ValidArgsFunction:     completeServiceNames(dockerCLI),
		DisableFlagsInUseLine: true,
	}

	flags := cmd.Flags()
	flags.StringVarP(&opts.format, "format", "f", "", flagsHelper.InspectFormatHelp)
	flags.BoolVar(&opts.pretty, "pretty", false, "Print the information in a human friendly format")

	return cmd
}

func runInspect(ctx context.Context, dockerCLI command.Cli, opts inspectOptions) error {
	apiClient := dockerCLI.Client()

	if opts.pretty {

View on GitHub (pinned to e9452d6e78)

Solutions

1. Drop one flag: use `--pretty` alone for human output, or `--format` alone for templated output.
2. If you want pretty via --format, use `--format pretty` instead of the boolean flag.
3. Check shell aliases/wrapper scripts for a hardcoded --pretty.

Example fix

# before
docker service inspect --pretty --format '{{.ID}}' web
# after
docker service inspect --format '{{.ID}}' web

When it happens

Trigger: `docker service inspect --pretty --format '{{.ID}}' svc` or any invocation setting both flags; also aliases/wrappers that always add --pretty while the caller adds --format.

Common situations: Shell aliases or scripts that hardcode --pretty, users combining examples from different docs, or automation adding --format to a command a human wrote with --pretty.

Related errors

• cannot supply extra formatting options to the pretty templat
• placement preference must be of the format "<strategy>=<arg>
• cannot supply extra formatting options to the pretty templat
• got wrong object to inspect
• tty service logs only supported with --raw

AI-assisted analysis of docker/cli@e9452d6e78 (2026-08-01). Data as JSON: /data/errors/5fe0ed38757de63a.json. Report an issue: GitHub.