azure support is currently alpha, and is feature-gated. Plea

Error message

azure support is currently alpha, and is feature-gated. Please export KOPS_FEATURE_FLAGS=Azure

What it means

Azure support in kOps is alpha and feature-gated; the Azure cloud branch refuses to proceed unless the 'Azure' feature flag is enabled, so an Azure cluster cannot be created or updated by default.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/apply_cluster.go:463

		{
			awsCloud := cloud.(awsup.AWSCloud)

			accountID, partition, err := awsCloud.AccountInfo(ctx)
			if err != nil {
				return nil, err
			}
			modelContext.AWSAccountID = accountID
			modelContext.AWSPartition = partition

			if len(sshPublicKeys) > 1 {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("exactly one 'admin' SSH public key can be specified when running with AWS; please delete a key using `kops delete secret`")
			}
		}

	case kops.CloudProviderAzure:
		{
			if !featureflag.Azure.Enabled() {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("azure support is currently alpha, and is feature-gated. Please export KOPS_FEATURE_FLAGS=Azure")
			}

			if len(sshPublicKeys) == 0 {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("SSH public key must be specified when running with AzureCloud (create with `kops create secret --name %s sshpublickey admin -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub`)", cluster.ObjectMeta.Name)
			}

			if len(sshPublicKeys) != 1 {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("exactly one 'admin' SSH public key can be specified when running with AzureCloud; please delete a key using `kops delete secret`")
			}
		}
	case kops.CloudProviderOpenstack:
		{
			if len(sshPublicKeys) == 0 {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("SSH public key must be specified when running with Openstack (create with `kops create secret --name %s sshpublickey admin -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub`)", cluster.ObjectMeta.Name)
			}

			if len(sshPublicKeys) != 1 {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("exactly one 'admin' SSH public key can be specified when running with Openstack; please delete a key using `kops delete secret`")

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

Export KOPS_FEATURE_FLAGS=Azure (e.g. `KOPS_FEATURE_FLAGS=Azure kops update cluster ...`)
Be aware Azure support is alpha and untested for production use

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/apply_cluster.go:463 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b39b3c3479fd55d0. Report an issue: GitHub.