kubernetes/kops · error

invalid value %q for --instance-manager

Error message

invalid value %q for --instance-manager

What it means

kops validates the --instance-manager flag during cluster creation. When the value supplied is not one of the supported instance managers (e.g. 'karpenter', 'cloudgroups'), NewCluster aborts with this message. It is a CLI/config input validation guard, not a runtime fault.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/new_cluster.go:487

	switch opt.InstanceManager {
	case "karpenter":
		if opt.DiscoveryStore == "" {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("karpenter requires --discovery-store")
		}
		cluster.Spec.Karpenter = &api.KarpenterConfig{
			Enabled: true,
		}
		nodes, err = setupKarpenterNodes(opt)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
	case "cloudgroups":
		nodes, err = setupNodes(opt, cluster, zoneToSubnetsMap)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
	default:
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid value %q for --instance-manager", opt.InstanceManager)
	}

	apiservers, err := setupAPIServers(opt, cluster, zoneToSubnetsMap)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	err = setupAPI(opt, cluster)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	instanceGroups := append([]*api.InstanceGroup(nil), controlPlanes...)
	instanceGroups = append(instanceGroups, apiservers...)
	instanceGroups = append(instanceGroups, nodes...)
	instanceGroups = append(instanceGroups, bastions...)

	for _, instanceGroup := range instanceGroups {

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Check supported values with `kops create cluster --help` and pass one exactly (e.g. --instance-manager=karpenter for AWS).
2. If the value is a feature-flagged manager, enable the required feature flag first: `export KOPS_FEATURE_FLAGS=<flag>` and retry.
3. Omit the flag entirely to use the default instance manager for the cloud provider.
4. Upgrade kops if the desired value only exists in a newer release.

Example fix

// before
kops create cluster --name=example.com --instance-manager=karpentr
// after
kops create cluster --name=example.com --instance-manager=karpenter

valid := map[string]bool{"cloudgroups": true, "karpenter": true}
if em := flagInstanceManager; em != "" && !valid[em] {
    return fmt.Errorf("unsupported --instance-manager %q; see 'kops create cluster --help'", em)
}

func isValidInstanceManager(v string) bool {
    switch v {
    case "cloudgroups", "karpenter":
        return true
    }
    return false
}

ig, err := NewCluster(opt, cluster, zoneToSubnetsMap)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "invalid value") && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "--instance-manager") {
        return fmt.Errorf("bad --instance-manager flag: %w (allowed: cloudgroups, karpenter)", err)
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running `kops create cluster --instance-manager <bad-value>` where the value is misspelled, unsupported for the chosen cloud provider, or copied from docs for a different kops version.

Common situations: Typo like --instance-manager=karpentr; using a value enabled only behind a feature flag or on a specific cloud (e.g. karpenter on AWS only); following an outdated tutorial.

Understand the failure class

Background: "unknown output mode", "invalid value for flag", "expects true/false": fixing invalid flag value errors in CLI tools — this error's family across 24 libraries.

Related errors

• spec.PublicKey is required
• adding keypair to %q is not supported
• unable to parse YAML %v: %v
• error adding SSH public key: %v
• parsing file %q: %v

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7378de55ca303907. Report an issue: GitHub.