kubernetes/kops · error

can only edit one instance group at a time

Error message

can only edit one instance group at a time

What it means

Argument validation in `kops edit instancegroup`: only one instance group can be edited per invocation, so this guard fires when more than one positional argument is given. Extra arguments are rejected rather than ignored.

Source

Thrown at cmd/kops/edit_instancegroup.go:99

		Aliases: []string{"instancegroups", "ig"},
		Short:   editInstancegroupShort,
		Long:    editInstancegroupLong,
		Example: editInstancegroupExample,
		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 the name of the instance group to edit")
			}

			options.GroupName = args[0]

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

			return nil
		},
		ValidArgsFunction: completeInstanceGroup(f, nil, nil),
		RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
			return RunEditInstanceGroup(cmd.Context(), f, out, options)
		},
	}

	LazyQuoteStringSliceVar(cmd.Flags(), &options.Sets, "set", options.Sets, "Directly set values in the spec")
	cmd.RegisterFlagCompletionFunc("set", func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string, toComplete string) ([]string, cobra.ShellCompDirective) {
		return nil, cobra.ShellCompDirectiveNoFileComp
	})
	cmd.Flags().StringSliceVar(&options.Unsets, "unset", options.Unsets, "Directly unset values in the spec")
	cmd.RegisterFlagCompletionFunc("unset", func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string, toComplete string) ([]string, cobra.ShellCompDirective) {
		return nil, cobra.ShellCompDirectiveNoFileComp
	})

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Pass only one instance group name per command
2. Edit additional instance groups with separate invocations

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at cmd/kops/edit_instancegroup.go:99 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/193cd4efcae04acd. Report an issue: GitHub.