kubernetes/kops · error

unable to parse snippet: %s, error: %s

Error message

unable to parse snippet: %s, error: %s

What it means

During Render, each snippet is parsed into the shared template set via tm.New(filename).Parse(snippet). If a snippet contains invalid Go template syntax (unclosed actions, bad functions, malformed pipelines), parsing fails and Render returns this error naming the snippet and the underlying parse error.

Source

Thrown at pkg/util/templater/templater.go:61

// Render is responsible for actually rendering the template
func (r *Templater) Render(content string, context map[string]interface{}, snippets map[string]string, failOnMissing bool) (rendered string, err error) {
	// @step: create the template
	tm := template.New(templateName)
	if _, err = tm.Funcs(r.templateFuncsMap(tm)).Parse(content); err != nil {
		return
	}
	if failOnMissing {
		tm.Option("missingkey=error")
	}

	// @step: add the snippits into the mix
	for filename, snippet := range snippets {
		if filename == templateName {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("snippet cannot have the same name as the template: %s", filename)
		}
		if _, err = tm.New(filename).Parse(snippet); err != nil {
			return rendered, fmt.Errorf("unable to parse snippet: %s, error: %s", filename, err)
		}
	}

	// @step: render the actual template
	writer := new(bytes.Buffer)
	defer func() {
		if r := recover(); r != nil {
			err = fmt.Errorf("failed to parse template, error: %s", r)
		}
	}()
	if err = tm.ExecuteTemplate(writer, templateName, context); err != nil {
		return
	}

	return writer.String(), nil
}

// indentContent is responsible for indenting the string content

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Fix the template syntax in the named snippet; read the parse error's line/column hint and validate with `gotemplate` linters or a small Go test using text/template
2. Check for unclosed {{ if }}/{{ range }} blocks and misspelled template functions
3. Compare the snippet against a known-good sibling snippet in the models directory

Example fix

// before
"{{ range .Nodes }}
  {{ .Name }}
" // missing {{ end }}
// after
"{{ range .Nodes }}
  {{ .Name }}
{{ end }}"

// Parse snippet standalone before Render
probe := template.New(templateName)
for name, body := range snippets {
	if _, err := probe.New(name).Parse(body); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("invalid snippet %s: %w", name, err)
	}
}

rendered, err := t.Render(snippets, values, templateName, "")
if err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "unable to parse snippet") {
		return fmt.Errorf("fix snippet syntax: %w", err)
	}
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Render with any snippet whose body is not valid text/template syntax — e.g. `{{ if .Foo }}` without `{{ end }}`, unknown functions, wrong pipe usage.

Common situations: Hand-edited model snippet files with typos, snippets copied from templates using functions unavailable in this context, or dynamically generated snippet strings with interpolation bugs.

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• invalid instance id %q: %w
• snippet cannot have the same name as the template: %s
• rendering addon %q for image discovery: %w
• failed to convert network ID %q to int: %w
• error parsing configuration %q: %v

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8acc5403bfe7bb11. Report an issue: GitHub.