kubernetes/kops · error

can only create one instance group at a time

Error message

can only create one instance group at a time

What it means

Argument validation in `kops create instancegroup`: the command only supports creating a single instance group per invocation, so this guard fires when more than one positional argument is passed. Only args[0] is used as the group name; extra arguments are rejected instead of being silently ignored.

Source

Thrown at cmd/kops/create_instancegroup.go:110

		Aliases: []string{"instancegroups", "ig"},
		Short:   createInstanceGroupShort,
		Long:    createInstanceGroupLong,
		Example: createInstanceGroupExample,
		Args: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
			options.ClusterName = rootCommand.ClusterName(true)

			if options.ClusterName == "" {
				return fmt.Errorf("--name is required")
			}

			if len(args) == 0 {
				return fmt.Errorf("must specify name of instance group to create")
			}

			options.InstanceGroupName = args[0]

			if len(args) != 1 {
				return fmt.Errorf("can only create one instance group at a time")
			}

			return nil
		},
		ValidArgsFunction: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string, toComplete string) ([]string, cobra.ShellCompDirective) {
			commandutils.ConfigureKlogForCompletion()
			if len(args) == 1 && rootCommand.ClusterName(false) == "" {
				return []string{"--name"}, cobra.ShellCompDirectiveNoFileComp
			}
			return nil, cobra.ShellCompDirectiveNoFileComp
		},
		RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
			return RunCreateInstanceGroup(cmd.Context(), f, out, options)
		},
	}

	allRoles := make([]string, 0, len(kopsapi.AllInstanceGroupRoles))
	for _, r := range kopsapi.AllInstanceGroupRoles {

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Pass only one instance group name per command invocation
2. Create additional instance groups with separate commands

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at cmd/kops/create_instancegroup.go:110 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/c16147e07ff09c3e. Report an issue: GitHub.