the --local-execution flag is not compatible with the --exit

Error message

the --local-execution flag is not compatible with the --exit-on-running flag

What it means

The `k6 cloud run` preRun hook rejects combining --local-execution with --exit-on-running. In local-execution mode the test runs in this process, so the cloud-only 'exit when the run reaches Running state' behavior is meaningless and would silently never trigger. The error carries exit code InvalidConfig (104) via errext.WithExitCodeIfNone.

Source

Thrown at internal/cmd/cloud_run.go:109

			"the k6 cloud run command expects a single argument consisting in either a path to a script or "+
				"archive file, or the \"-\" symbol indicating the script or archive should be read from stdin",
		),
		PreRunE: cloudRunCmd.preRun,
		RunE:    cloudRunCmd.run,
	}

	thisCmd.Flags().SortFlags = false
	thisCmd.Flags().AddFlagSet(cloudRunCmd.flagSet())
	thisCmd.Flags().AddFlagSet(cloudCmd.flagSet())

	return thisCmd
}

func (c *cmdCloudRun) preRun(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
	if c.localExecution {
		if cmd.Flags().Changed("exit-on-running") {
			return errext.WithExitCodeIfNone(
				fmt.Errorf("the --local-execution flag is not compatible with the --exit-on-running flag"),
				exitcodes.InvalidConfig,
			)
		}

		if cmd.Flags().Changed("show-logs") {
			return errext.WithExitCodeIfNone(
				fmt.Errorf("the --local-execution flag is not compatible with the --show-logs flag"),
				exitcodes.InvalidConfig,
			)
		}

		return nil
	}

	if c.linger {
		return errext.WithExitCodeIfNone(
			fmt.Errorf("the --linger flag can only be used in conjunction with the --local-execution flag"),
			exitcodes.InvalidConfig,

View on GitHub (pinned to 93accf6570)

Solutions

Remove --exit-on-running from the command when using --local-execution
If you need the old cloud-execution behavior, drop --local-execution instead
Audit shared flag variables in CI wrappers so mutually exclusive flags are not always injected

Example fix

# before
k6 cloud run --local-execution --exit-on-running script.js
# after
k6 cloud run --local-execution script.js

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// wrapper-level guard before shelling out to k6
if localExecution && strings.Join(os.Args, " ") != "" {
    for _, a := range os.Args {
        if a == "--exit-on-running" || strings.HasPrefix(a, "--exit-on-running=") {
            log.Fatal("--exit-on-running cannot be combined with --local-execution")
        }
    }
}

Prevention

Build cloud-run flag sets per execution mode instead of one shared variable
Document flag compatibility in the CI job template
Check exit code 104 (InvalidConfig) in wrappers to fail fast on flag misuse

When it happens

Trigger: Invoking `k6 cloud run --local-execution --exit-on-running ...` (or setting the flag to any value, including false, since only Flags().Changed matters).

Common situations: CI wrappers that pass a fixed set of cloud flags to every invocation; migrating an existing `k6 cloud --exit-on-running` pipeline to local execution; shell scripts reusing a shared FLAGS variable.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of grafana/k6@93accf6570 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1af80ccf50f926c7. Report an issue: GitHub.