Sporadic kubelogin command not found

[aravindsemp]

Describe the bug

We're getting sporadic kubelogin: command not found error on our self-hosted VMSS ADO build agents. kubelogin and kubectl are being installed with az aks install-cli command as part of the custom scripts on the agents.

Most of our jobs have we set the kube context for kubectl with the following code and run kubectl and helm commands subsequently.

# Set Kubernetes context
 az aks get-credentials --resource-group ${{ parameters.ResourceGroupName }} --name ${{ parameters.AksName }} --overwrite-existing
 kubelogin convert-kubeconfig -l azurecli
 kubectl get pods             

It used to work without any issues. But, in the recent past we have been encountering the following error -

WARNING: Merged "aks-cluster-test-lab01-eastus" as current context in /home/AzDevOps/.kube/config
WARNING: The kubeconfig uses devicecode authentication which requires kubelogin. Please install kubelogin from https://github.com/Azure/kubelogin or run 'az aks install-cli' to install both kubectl and kubelogin. If devicecode login fails, try running 'kubelogin convert-kubeconfig -l azurecli' to unblock yourself.
/agent/_work/_temp/azureclitaskscript1761144036262.sh: line 5: kubelogin: command not found

##[error]Script failed with exit code: 127

Related command

# Set Kubernetes context
 az aks get-credentials --resource-group ${{ parameters.ResourceGroupName }} --name ${{ parameters.AksName }} --overwrite-existing
 kubelogin convert-kubeconfig -l azurecli
 kubectl get pods             

Errors

WARNING: Merged "aks-cluster-test-lab01-eastus" as current context in /home/AzDevOps/.kube/config
WARNING: The kubeconfig uses devicecode authentication which requires kubelogin. Please install kubelogin from https://github.com/Azure/kubelogin or run 'az aks install-cli' to install both kubectl and kubelogin. If devicecode login fails, try running 'kubelogin convert-kubeconfig -l azurecli' to unblock yourself.
/agent/_work/_temp/azureclitaskscript1761144036262.sh: line 5: kubelogin: command not found

##[error]Script failed with exit code: 127

Issue script & Debug output

NA

Expected behavior

kubelogin should be found to run set the kube config

Environment Summary

/usr/bin/az --version
azure-cli 2.78.0

core 2.78.0
telemetry 1.1.0

Extensions:
azure-devops 1.0.2

Dependencies:
msal 1.34.0b1
azure-mgmt-resource 23.3.0

Python location '/opt/az/bin/python3'
Config directory '/home/AzDevOps/.azure'
Extensions directory '/home/AzDevOps/.azure/cliextensions'

Python (Linux) 3.13.7 (main, Oct 9 2025, 05:49:51) [GCC 11.4.0]

Legal docs and information: aka.ms/AzureCliLegal

Additional context

No response

[yonzhan]

Thank you for opening this issue, we will look into it.

[mbifeld]

Hi @aravindsemp, if the install-cli command doesn't return an error but subsequently it can't find kubelogin, that seems to me like a path mismatch. Not sure what changed to cause this, but can you try the following to see where it's getting installed? It might need a PATH update after installation

az aks install-cli --debug
which kubectl || echo "kubectl not found"
which kubelogin || echo "kubelogin not found"
ls -l /usr/local/bin | grep kube
ls -l $HOME/.azure* | grep kube

It's also interesting that it's sporadic, do you have multiple jobs running simultaneously on the same agent?

[mbifeld]

@aravindsemp Following up, was the above message useful in solving your issue?

[aravindsemp]

I don't think it was an issue with the PATH settings. When we bring up the build VMSS, as part of the custom script we would install the kubelogin/kubectl (with install-cli) and set the path. It was working fine for the last one year or so. Anyways, we fixed the issue by explicitly installing the kubelogin/kubectl just before they're being used.