kubernetes/kubernetes · error

error validating source directory: %v

Error message

error validating source directory: %v

What it means

verifyPublishingBotRules (publishing-verifier.go:191-192) wraps the error from checkValidSourceDirectory with this prefix. The real cause is one of the source-directory checks (deprecated dir field, multiple dirs, or copy/paste suffix mismatch). The %v is the wrapped inner error.

Source

Thrown at hack/tools/publishing-verifier/publishing-verifier.go:192

	var processedRepos []string
	for _, rule := range rules.Rules {
		branch := rule.Branches[0]

		// if this no longer exists in master
		if _, ok := gomodDependencies[rule.DestinationRepository]; !ok {
			// make sure we dont include a rule to publish it from master
			for _, branch := range rule.Branches {
				if branch.Name == "master" {
					err := fmt.Errorf("cannot find master branch for destination `%s`", rule.DestinationRepository)
					panic(err)
				}
			}
			// and skip the validation of publishing rules for it
			continue
		}

		if err := checkValidSourceDirectory(rule); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error validating source directory: %v", err)
		}

		if err := checkMasterBranch(rule); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error validating master branch: %v", err)
		}

		// we specify the go version for all master branches through `default-go-version`
		// so ensure we don't specify explicit go version for master branch in rules
		if branch.GoVersion != "" {
			err := fmt.Errorf("go version must not be specified for master branch for destination `%s`", rule.DestinationRepository)
			panic(err)
		}

		fmt.Printf("processing : %s", rule.DestinationRepository)
		if _, ok := gomodDependencies[rule.DestinationRepository]; !ok {
			err := fmt.Errorf("missing go.mod for `%s`", rule.DestinationRepository)
			panic(err)
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to 94c1367642)

Solutions

1. Read the inner message after the colon to identify which of 500/501/502 fired and apply that fix.
2. Run the verifier locally to see the full wrapped chain clearly.
3. After fixing the underlying source-directory issue, re-run to confirm the wrapper disappears.

// Pre-flight: run all source-directory checks before the verifier does.
// Reuse the checkValidSourceDirectory logic (errors 500/501/502) on each rule
// and report a precise message instead of the generic wrapper.
func preflightSourceDir(rules []RepositoryRule) error {
    for _, r := range rules {
        if err := checkValidSourceDirectory(r); err != nil {
            return err
        }
    }
    return nil
}

// Unwrap to surface the precise inner cause for logging:
if err := verifyPublishingBotRules(); err != nil {
    fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "source-directory validation failed: %v\n", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Any failure inside checkValidSourceDirectory for a rule: branch.Source.Dir set, more than one source dir, or a dir path not ending in the destination repository name.

Common situations: Same root causes as errors 500/501/502; this wrapper appears in CI logs before the inner message.

Related errors

• error validating master branch: %v
• error validating dependencies: %v
• cannot have more than one directory (%s) per source branch `
• empty hostname-override is invalid
• failed validate: %w

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kubernetes@94c1367642 (2026-08-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/eed05d57dafd704c. Report an issue: GitHub.