docker/cli · error

--show-digest is not yet supported with --tree

Error message

--show-digest is not yet supported with --tree

What it means

--show-digest adds a DIGEST column to the tabular `docker image ls` output; the tree view has its own multi-platform layout and does not implement a digest column, so shouldUseTree rejects combining the flags with a 'not yet supported' error rather than dropping the digest silently. (Note the error text says --show-digest while the actual flag is --digests in some CLI versions.)

Source

Thrown at cli/command/image/list.go:164

	return len(images), nil
}

func shouldUseTree(options imagesOptions) (bool, error) {
	if options.quiet {
		if options.tree {
			return false, errors.New("--quiet is not yet supported with --tree")
		}
		return false, nil
	}
	if options.noTrunc {
		if options.tree {
			return false, errors.New("--no-trunc is not yet supported with --tree")
		}
		return false, nil
	}
	if options.showDigests {
		if options.tree {
			return false, errors.New("--show-digest is not yet supported with --tree")
		}
		return false, nil
	}
	if options.format != "" {
		if options.tree {
			return false, errors.New("--format is not yet supported with --tree")
		}
		return false, nil
	}
	return true, nil
}

// isDangling is a copy of [formatter.isDangling].
func isDangling(img image.Summary) bool {
	if len(img.RepoTags) == 0 {
		return true
	}
	return len(img.RepoTags) == 1 && img.RepoTags[0] == "<none>:<none>" && len(img.RepoDigests) == 1 && img.RepoDigests[0] == "<none>@<none>"

View on GitHub (pinned to e9452d6e78)

Solutions

  1. Use the tabular view for digests: `docker image ls --digests`.
  2. Use `docker image ls --tree` alone; per-platform digests are part of what the tree displays for multi-platform images.
  3. Fetch a specific digest with `docker image inspect --format '{{.RepoDigests}}' <image>`.

Example fix

# before
docker image ls --tree --digests
# after
docker image ls --digests

When it happens

Trigger: Running `docker image ls --tree --digests`; shouldUseTree returns the error whenever both options.showDigests and options.tree are set.

Common situations: Users verifying pushed image digests while trying the tree view; CI scripts using --digests for content-addressed pinning combined with a --tree alias; comparing multi-platform manifests where both digest and tree info seem natural to want together.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of docker/cli@e9452d6e78 (2026-08-01). Data as JSON: /data/errors/8fec5716e68e2978.json. Report an issue: GitHub.