kubernetes/kops · error

duplicate variable found: %s

Error message

duplicate variable found: %s

What it means

Thrown by TerraformWriter.GetOutputs when two distinct output entries sanitize to the same Terraform output name — i.e. the outputs list contains a duplicate after name sanitization (dashes/cases collapsing to the same tfName). Terraform does not allow duplicate output names, so the generated HCL would be invalid.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/terraformWriter/writer.go:259

		tfName := sanitizeName(res.ResourceName)

		if resources[tfName] != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("duplicate resource found: %s.%s", res.ResourceType, tfName)
		}

		resources[tfName] = res.Item
	}

	return resourcesByType, nil
}

func (t *TerraformWriter) GetOutputs() (map[string]OutputValue, error) {
	values := map[string]OutputValue{}
	for _, v := range t.outputs {
		tfName := sanitizeName(v.Key)
		if _, found := values[tfName]; found {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("duplicate variable found: %s", tfName)
		}
		deduped, err := dedupLiterals(v.ValueArray)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
		values[tfName] = OutputValue{
			Value:      v.Value,
			ValueArray: deduped,
		}
	}
	return values, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Find which two output keys sanitize to the same name (the error prints the tfName) and rename one in the task definitions
2. Avoid emitting both a raw and a sanitized variant of the same key from tasks
3. Add a unit check when adding new outputs so names stay unique after sanitization

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/terraformWriter/writer.go:259 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/fe1f7b4fa506baaa. Report an issue: GitHub.