kubernetes/kops · error

error parsing file %q: %v

Error message

error parsing file %q: %v

What it means

After splitting the file into YAML/JSON sections, kops decodes each via kopscodecs.Decode. This error means a section is not valid YAML/JSON, is not a registered kops API type, or fails schema validation for the target group-version.

Source

Thrown at cmd/kops/replace.go:112

	for _, f := range c.Filenames {
		var contents []byte
		if f == "-" {
			contents, err = ConsumeStdin()
			if err != nil {
				return err
			}
		} else {
			contents, err = vfsContext.ReadFile(f)
			if err != nil {
				return fmt.Errorf("error reading file %q: %v", f, err)
			}
		}
		sections := text.SplitContentToSections(contents)

		for _, section := range sections {
			o, gvk, err := kopscodecs.Decode(section, nil)
			if err != nil {
				return fmt.Errorf("error parsing file %q: %v", f, err)
			}

			switch v := o.(type) {
			case *kopsapi.Cluster:
				{
					// Retrieve the current status of the cluster.  This will eventually be part of the cluster object.
					cloud, err := cloudup.BuildCloud(v)
					if err != nil {
						return err
					}
					status, err := cloud.FindClusterStatus(v)
					if err != nil {
						return err
					}

					// Check if the cluster exists already
					clusterName := v.Name
					cluster, err := clientset.GetCluster(ctx, clusterName)

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Validate the YAML/JSON syntax (yamllint or `kubectl apply --dry-run=client` style parsing)
2. Ensure kind and apiVersion are supported kops types for your kops binary version
3. Run `kops replace --help` / check docs for the accepted schema; upgrade or regenerate the manifest with `kops get -o yaml`
4. Fix indentation (spaces, never tabs) and document separators (---)
5. Decode incrementally: split the file and parse each section to find the offending document

Example fix

// before (invalid)
kind: Cluster
metadata:
	name: mycluster
// after
kind: Cluster
metadata:
  name: mycluster

var raw interface{}
if err := yaml.Unmarshal(contents, &raw); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("invalid YAML: %w", err)
}
// Optionally assert kind is a supported kops type before calling replace.
kind, _ := raw.(map[string]interface{})["kind"].(string)
supported := map[string]bool{"Cluster": true, "InstanceGroup": true}
if !supported[kind] {
    return fmt.Errorf("unsupported kind for kops replace: %s", kind)
}

func isKopsManifestKind(kind string) bool {
    switch kind {
    case "Cluster", "InstanceGroup":
        return true
    }
    return false
}

if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "no kind") || strings.Contains(err.Error(), "cannot unmarshal") {
        // schema/parse problem: log file + line, fix manifest
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Manifest with invalid YAML syntax (bad indentation, tabs); YAML that parses but whose kind/apiVersion is not a kops type (e.g. a Deployment); missing required fields; documents separated with a separator kops does not recognize; an apiVersion from an incompatible kops version.

Common situations: Hand-edited cluster.yaml with a syntax error; exporting a k8s workload manifest and passing it to `kops replace`; upgrading kops so an old apiVersion (e.g. kops/v1alpha2) is no longer accepted; copy-pasting YAML with tabs.

Understand the failure class

Background: Schema validation failed / invalid input schema: payload rejected because its shape doesn't match the expected schema — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• error parsing addons: %v
• error parsing addons or manifest: %v
• failed to parse objects: %w
• failed to parse objects: %w
• error parsing file %q: %v

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9d42896761e5c671. Report an issue: GitHub.