`kubebuilder create api --resource=false` generates references to non-existent resources

[haskjold]

What broke? What's expected?

When using --resource=false some things are not created like the crd and api dirs with its corresponding content.

But these are still references in various places:

1. The Dockerfile has a COPY api/ api/
2. internal/controller/suite_test.go lists the crd dir: CRDDirectoryPaths: []string{filepath.Join("..", "..", "config", "crd", "bases")},
3. test/e2e/e2e_test.go contain steps for make install and make uninstall that also are for the non-existing crds in this case

I'm creating several ctrls with --resource=false and it would be nice to not have to manually clean this up every time.

Reproducing this issue

No response

KubeBuilder (CLI) Version

Version: cmd.version{KubeBuilderVersion:"4.8.0", KubernetesVendor:"1.33.0", GitCommit:"a069bf1a12785fa210409c558ae668565296c675", BuildDate:"2025-08-27T11:08:55Z", GoOs:"linux", GoArch:"amd64"}

PROJECT version

3

Plugin versions

Other versions

No response

Extra Labels

No response

[camilamacedo86]

If you use --resource=false, then you are saying do not create API, so that is expected.
However, the changes addressed in the follow PRs should sort out your scenario and will be addressed with the next release which should rollout soon

• make docker-build fails if Dockerfile has COPY api/ api/ or COPY internal/ internal/ but the dirs don’t exist. #5046
• 🐛 (go/v4) Handle empty CRD directories in Makefile install/uninstall targets #5042

[haskjold]

If you use --resource=false, then you are saying do not create API, so that is expected. However, the changes addressed in the follow PRs should sort out your scenario and will be addressed with the next release which should rollout soon

• make docker-build fails if Dockerfile has COPY api/ api/ or COPY internal/ internal/ but the dirs don’t exist. #5046
• 🐛 (go/v4) Handle empty CRD directories in Makefile install/uninstall targets #5042

Hi, yes I did not expect the api to be created in this case. What I was trying to say was that when using --resource=false and thus no api dir will be present, then COPY api/ api/ should not be added to the Dockerfile :)

[camilamacedo86]

It will be fixed from the next release, really, thank you for raising it.
Marking as solved with: https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kubebuilder/pull/5048/files

Thank you!