slimtoolkit/slim · error

couldn't find workload in cluster

Error message

couldn't find workload in cluster

What it means

findInCluster collects workload infos (pod/deployment/etc.) matching the given target in the cluster. If the query returns zero infos, nothing matching the workload spec exists, so it fails with this error.

Solutions

1. Verify namespace and workload name are correct (kubectl get all -n <ns>)
2. Check the kubeconfig context points at the intended cluster
3. Deploy/start the target workload before running the tool

Example fix

// before
client.FindInCluster(ctx, "my-app", "default")
// after
client.FindInCluster(ctx, "my-app", "staging") // correct namespace

deps, _ := clientset.AppsV1().Deployments(ns).List(ctx, metav1.ListOptions{})
found := false
for _, d := range deps.Items { if d.Name == workload { found = true } }
if !found { return fmt.Errorf("workload %s not found in namespace %s", workload, ns) }

info, err := findInCluster(ctx, target)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "couldn't find workload") {
  return fmt.Errorf("check namespace/name and cluster context: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling findInCluster when no resource in the cluster matches the given workload name/namespace/selector — e.g. wrong namespace or typo'd workload name.

Common situations: Targeting a namespace that doesn't contain the workload; the workload was deleted or never deployed; kubeconfig pointing at the wrong cluster/context.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• couldn't unambiguously identify workload in cluster
• cannot detect host port
• Container terminated
• ephemeral container not found
• found more than 1 workload

AI-assisted analysis of slimtoolkit/slim@81940d17fa (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/64eed14e7261555a. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at pkg/app/master/kubernetes/workload.go:180

func (f *WorkloadFinder) findInCluster(target config.KubernetesTarget) (*resource.Info, error) {
	namespace := target.Namespace
	if namespace == "" {
		namespace = namespaceDefault
	}

	infos, err := f.resourceBuilderFn().
		WithScheme(scheme.Scheme, scheme.Scheme.PrioritizedVersionsAllGroups()...).
		NamespaceParam(namespace).
		SingleResourceType().
		ResourceTypeOrNameArgs(true, target.Workload).
		Do().
		Infos()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	if len(infos) == 0 {
		return nil, errors.New("couldn't find workload in cluster")
	}
	if len(infos) > 1 {
		return nil, errors.New("couldn't unambiguously identify workload in cluster")
	}

	return infos[0], nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 81940d17fa)