kubernetes/kops · error

kubernetes feature gate must not be empty

Error message

kubernetes feature gate must not be empty

What it means

parseKubernetesFeatureGate returns this sentinel validation error when the --set-feature-gates entry is empty or whitespace after trimming. It fires before any +/- sign parsing, so an empty string among the feature-gate list aborts cluster creation.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/new_cluster.go:621

		if len(g.Spec.Subnets) == 0 {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("unable to infer any Subnets for InstanceGroup %s ", g.ObjectMeta.Name)
		}

		ig.AddInstanceGroupNodeLabel()
	}

	result := NewClusterResult{
		Cluster:        cluster,
		InstanceGroups: instanceGroups,
		Channel:        channel,
	}
	return &result, nil
}

func parseKubernetesFeatureGate(featureGate string) (string, bool, error) {
	featureGate = strings.TrimSpace(featureGate)
	if featureGate == "" {
		return "", false, fmt.Errorf("kubernetes feature gate must not be empty")
	}

	enabled := true
	switch featureGate[0] {
	case '+':
		featureGate = strings.TrimSpace(featureGate[1:])
	case '-':
		enabled = false
		featureGate = strings.TrimSpace(featureGate[1:])
	}

	if featureGate == "" {
		return "", false, fmt.Errorf("kubernetes feature gate must include a feature name")
	}

	return featureGate, enabled, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Remove empty entries from the feature-gate list (check for trailing/double commas)
2. Pass gates in the form FeatureName=true/false or +FeatureName/-FeatureName

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/new_cluster.go:621 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/146761faf78ddac7. Report an issue: GitHub.