kubernetes/kops · error

must specify ID of instance or name of node to delete

Error message

must specify ID of instance or name of node to delete

What it means

The delete instance command's argument validator requires the cloud instance ID or Kubernetes node name as a positional argument; this fires when no positional args were given, so there is nothing to identify the instance to delete.

Source

Thrown at cmd/kops/delete_instance.go:128

	deleteInstanceShort := i18n.T(`Delete an instance.`)

	var options DeleteInstanceOptions
	options.initDefaults()

	cmd := &cobra.Command{
		Use:     "instance INSTANCE|NODE",
		Short:   deleteInstanceShort,
		Long:    deleteInstanceLong,
		Example: deleteInstanceExample,
		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 ID of instance or name of node to delete")
			}
			options.InstanceID = args[0]

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

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

	cmd.Flags().BoolVar(&options.CloudOnly, "cloudonly", options.CloudOnly, "Perform deletion update without confirming progress with Kubernetes")
	cmd.Flags().BoolVar(&options.Surge, "surge", options.Surge, "Surge by detaching the node from the ASG before deletion")

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Provide the instance ID or node name: `kops delete instance i-0abc123`.
2. If scripting, verify the variable holding the ID is non-empty before invoking kops.
3. List instances first (`kops get instances` / kubectl get nodes) to find the correct identifier.

Example fix

// before
kops delete instance --name cluster.example.com
// after
kops delete instance i-0abc123 --name cluster.example.com

instanceID := os.Getenv("INSTANCE_ID")
if instanceID == "" {
    return fmt.Errorf("instance ID must be resolved before calling kops delete instance")
}
args = append(args, instanceID)

When it happens

Trigger: Running `kops delete instance` with flags only and no instance ID/node name argument.

Common situations: Users expecting an interactive picker or --all style flag; scripts where the instance ID variable was empty.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• must specify the name of the instance group to delete
• cluster is required
• instance-group is required
• host is required
• name is required

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/734b7de1b81c7f49. Report an issue: GitHub.