BUG: driftExclusions fails when removing `/spec/replicas` even though the target field exists

[kahirokunn]

Problem Description

In Sveltos v1.0.0, when using driftExclusions to exclude /spec/replicas, the following error occurs during the JSON Patch remove operation even though spec.replicas clearly exists in the target Deployment:

error in remove for path: '/spec/replicas': Unable to remove nonexistent key: replicas: missing value

Reproduction Steps

Apply the following ClusterProfile:

apiVersion: config.projectsveltos.io/v1beta1
kind: ClusterProfile
metadata:
  name: envoy-gateway-installation
spec:
  stopMatchingBehavior: LeavePolicies
  clusterSelector:
    matchLabels:
      test: enabled
  syncMode: ContinuousWithDriftDetection
  reloader: true
  extraLabels:
    appthrust.io/managed-by: appthrust
  helmCharts:
    - repositoryURL: oci://docker.io/envoyproxy
      repositoryName: gateway-helm
      chartName: gateway-helm
      chartVersion: 1.5.0
      releaseName: eg
      releaseNamespace: envoy-gateway-system
      helmChartAction: Install
      options:
        upgradeOptions:
          upgradeCRDs: true
          cleanupOnFail: true
          force: true
        wait: true
        waitForJobs: true
        atomic: true
      values: |
        global:
          imageRegistry: mirror.gcr.io
        config:
          envoyGateway:
            provider:
              kubernetes:
                deploy:
                  type: GatewayNamespace
  driftExclusions:
    - paths:
        - "/spec/replicas"
      target:
        kind: Deployment
        group: apps
        version: v1

ClusterSummary status:

status:
  dependencies: All dependencies deployed
  deployedGVKs:
  - deployedGroupVersionKind:
    - EnvoyProxy.v1alpha1.gateway.envoyproxy.io
    - GatewayClass.v1.gateway.networking.k8s.io
    featureID: Resources
  featureSummaries:
  - featureID: Resources
    hash: 0FJNJ0uz698mlQspm2yolsCJ+J5gFyCIz7koNH3q4sg=
    lastAppliedTime: "2025-08-15T01:45:23Z"
    status: Provisioned
  - consecutiveFailures: 35
    failureMessage: 'error in remove for path: ''/spec/replicas'': Unable to remove
      nonexistent key: replicas: missing value'
    featureID: Helm
    hash: DiQnDMhsM48DfGZPtugDjgua55w8GUy5MVDIX42zSw0=
    lastAppliedTime: "2025-08-15T07:23:38Z"
    status: Provisioning
  helmReleaseSummaries:
  - releaseName: eg
    releaseNamespace: envoy-gateway-system
    status: Managing
    valuesHash: GceliXddB/MpARyHwuan9j6oKC6nXKxL/flePoQVL/g=

What I tried:

cat << 'EOF' > test-values.yaml
global:
  imageRegistry: mirror.gcr.io
config:
  envoyGateway:
    provider:
      kubernetes:
        deploy:
          type: GatewayNamespace
EOF

# Created test-values.yaml based on ClusterProfile values,
# then confirmed helm template output with the following command
helm template eg oci://docker.io/envoyproxy/gateway-helm \
          --version 1.5.0 \
          --namespace envoy-gateway-system \
          -f test-values.yaml \
        | yq 'select(.kind=="Deployment" and .metadata.name=="envoy-gateway") | .spec.replicas'

Pulled: docker.io/envoyproxy/gateway-helm:1.5.0
Digest: sha256:8709b9d579882983c11b9d7475f537ce63bb2201bdf8ac96a70048bb64c0f9ac
1

In reality, envoy-gateway is running properly (see attached screenshot), and the blame result also shows that spec.replicas: 1 exists.

System Information

CLUSTERAPI VERSION: v1.10.3 SVELTOS VERSION: v1.0.0 KUBERNETES VERSION: v1.33.2

Logs

error in remove for path: '/spec/replicas': Unable to remove nonexistent key: replicas: missing value

Additional Information

• The helm template output includes spec.replicas: 1.
• The live Deployment on the actual cluster also has spec.replicas: 1.

[gianlucam76]

Thanks @kahirokunn

The error is coming from using

  extraLabels:
    appthrust.io/managed-by: appthrust

extraLabels and extraAnnotations are deprecated.

I will keep this open but the fix wont be available on v1.0.1

[gianlucam76]

This method is the one returning the error

[kahirokunn]

Okay Thx😭