hashicorp/packer · error

Plugin source has a type with the %q prefix, which isn't val

Error message

Plugin source has a type with the %q prefix, which isn't valid.
If you are the author of this plugin, rename it to not include the prefix.
Ex: %q

What it means

When a type segment starts with a redundant prefix (like 'packer-plugin-' or 'packer-provisioner-') that would NOT produce a valid suggestion via ParsePluginPart, Packer still rejects it, telling plugin authors to rename rather than offering a suggestion. This covers prefixes that leave an invalid remainder (e.g. residual underscores).

Source

Thrown at hcl2template/addrs/plugin.go:195

			// syntactically-valid plugin type, so we don't end up advising
			// the user to try something that would be invalid for another
			// reason anyway.
			// (This is mainly just for robustness, because the validation
			// we already did above should've rejected most/all ways for
			// the suggestedType to end up invalid here.)
			suggestedType := strings.Replace(givenName, userErrorPrefix, "", -1)
			if _, err := ParsePluginPart(suggestedType); err == nil {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("Plugin source has a type with the prefix %q, which isn't valid.\n"+
					"Although that prefix is often used in the names of version control repositories "+
					"for Packer plugins, plugin source strings should not include it.\n"+
					"\nDid you mean %q?", userErrorPrefix, suggestedType)
			}
		}
		// Otherwise, probably instead an incorrectly-named plugin, perhaps
		// arising from a similar instinct to what causes there to be
		// thousands of Python packages on PyPI with "python-"-prefixed
		// names.
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("Plugin source has a type with the %q prefix, which isn't valid.\n"+
			"If you are the author of this plugin, rename it to not include the prefix.\n"+
			"Ex: %q",
			redundantPrefix,
			strings.Replace(givenName, redundantPrefix, "", 1))
	}

	plug := &Plugin{
		Source: str,
	}
	if len(plug.Parts()) > 16 {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("The source URL must have at most 16 components, and the one provided has %d.\n"+
			"This is unsupported by Packer, please consider using a source that has less components to it.\n"+
			"If this is a blocking issue for you, please open an issue to ask for supporting more "+
			"components to the source URI.",
			len(plug.Parts()))
	}

	return plug, nil

View on GitHub (pinned to eb36e3c3e4)

Solutions

1. If you are the plugin author, rename the plugin/repository to drop the prefix and use only letters, digits, and single dashes
2. If you are a user, pin an older release or ask the author to rename; then reference the corrected type
3. Strip the prefix manually and validate the remaining type characters yourself

Example fix

// before
source = "github.com/org/packer-plugin-my_data"
// after
source = "github.com/org/my-data"

name := src[strings.LastIndex(src, "/")+1:]
for _, p := range []string{"packer-plugin-", "packer-provisioner-", "packer-builder-"} {
  if strings.HasPrefix(name, p) { name = strings.TrimPrefix(name, p) }
}
// validate name has only [a-zA-Z0-9-] before use

When it happens

Trigger: ParsePluginSourceString given a type with a redundant component prefix whose stripped result still fails validation, e.g. 'github.com/org/packer-plugin-my_data'.

Common situations: Plugin authors who published repos with prefix plus invalid characters (underscores); users referencing such badly-named plugins.

Related errors

• cannot use multiple consecutive dashes
• must contain only letters, digits, and dashes, and may not u
• The provided source URL is invalid. The following errors hav
• Invalid plugin type %q in source: %s"
• Plugin source has a type with the prefix %q, which isn't val

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/packer@eb36e3c3e4 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/94bf10f96953e132. Report an issue: GitHub.