kubebuilder alpha generate fails to rescaffold if PROJECT contains go.kubebuilder.io/v3

[lack]

What broke? What's expected?

I'm trying to upgrade an old project to go/v4 via kubebuilder.

Here's what I tried:

kubebuilder alpha generate --plugins "go.kubebuilder.io/v4"

Here's what I got:

INFO kubebuilder init:
$ kubebuilder init --plugins go.kubebuilder.io/v3 --domain eapol.openshift.io 
Error: no plugin could be resolved with key "go.kubebuilder.io/v3"
Usage:
  kubebuilder [flags]

Examples:
The first step is to initialize your project:
    kubebuilder init [--plugins=<PLUGIN KEYS> [--project-version=<PROJECT VERSION>]]

<PLUGIN KEYS> is a comma-separated list of plugin keys from the following table
and <PROJECT VERSION> a supported project version for these plugins.

                             Plugin keys | Supported project versions
-----------------------------------------+----------------------------
               base.go.kubebuilder.io/v4 |                          3
 deploy-image.go.kubebuilder.io/v1-alpha |                          3
                    go.kubebuilder.io/v4 |                          3
         grafana.kubebuilder.io/v1-alpha |                          3
      kustomize.common.kubebuilder.io/v2 |                          3

For more specific help for the init command of a certain plugins and project version
configuration please run:
    kubebuilder init --help --plugins=<PLUGIN KEYS> [--project-version=<PROJECT VERSION>]

Default plugin keys: "go.kubebuilder.io/v4"
Default project version: "3"


Flags:
  -h, --help                     help for kubebuilder
      --plugins strings          plugin keys to be used for this subcommand execution
      --project-version string   project version (default "3")

FATA no plugin could be resolved with key "go.kubebuilder.io/v3" 
FATA Failed to command exit status 1

Reproducing this issue

Originating PROJECT file contained

layout:
- go.kubebuilder.io/v3

KubeBuilder (CLI) Version

Version: main.version{KubeBuilderVersion:"4.3.1", KubernetesVendor:"1.31.0", GitCommit:"a9ee3909f7686902879bd666b92deec4718d92c9", BuildDate:"2024-11-09T12:30:22Z", GoOs:"linux", GoArch:"amd64"}

PROJECT version

3

Plugin versions

plugins:
  manifests.sdk.operatorframework.io/v2: {}
  scorecard.sdk.operatorframework.io/v2: {}

Other versions

go version go1.23.3 linux/amd64

Extra Labels

No response

[camilamacedo86]

Workaround

Update the PROJECT file and replace go.kubebuilder.io/v3 with go.kubebuilder.io/v4

Solution: What we need to do here

If we run kubebuilder alpha generate, we will do the same scaffold for the default plugin in Kubebuilder
The problem is here: https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kubebuilder/blob/master/pkg/cli/alpha/internal/generate.go#L254-L265

We are using the same plugins for all of them.

[camilamacedo86]

The problem is actually here: https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kubebuilder/blob/master/pkg/cli/cli.go#L99-L103

When we try to solve the plugins: https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kubebuilder/blob/master/pkg/cli/cli.go#L169-L172
because for v4 those plugins are no longer supported

We need add here a solution that works ONLY for kubebuilder alpha generate command
We might want to check that it is the command used and update the PROJECT file with a support plugin before run the command such as the above workaround.