S3 Controller not working for Directory Buckets

[Itai-Melamed]

Describe the bug
When trying to create a Directory Bucket using the CRD, we're getting MalformedXML error.
When trying to adopt an existing Directory Bucket, "adopted resource not found"
Initially working on 1.0.32, after upgrading to 1.1.1 the issue persists.

Steps to reproduce

Creating new Directory Bucket

1. Create a new Bucket resource YAML file:

# my-test-directory-bucket.yaml
apiVersion: s3.services.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: Bucket
metadata:
  name: my-test-directory-bucket
spec:
  name: my-test-directory-bucket--euw1-az3--x-s3
  createBucketConfiguration:
    locationConstraint: eu-west-1

1. Apply and check Status

kubectl apply -f my-test-directory-bucket.yaml
kubectl describe bucket/my-test-directory-bucket

After checking the status -

# Received Status is:
status:
  ackResourceMetadata:
    ownerAccountID: "**************"
    region: eu-west-1
  conditions:
  - message: 'api error MalformedXML: The XML you provided was not well-formed or
      did not validate against our published schema'
    status: "True"
    type: ACK.Terminal
  - lastTransitionTime: "2025-10-19T14:45:23Z"
    message: Resource not synced
    reason: resource is in terminal condition
    status: "False"
    type: ACK.ResourceSynced

Adopting an existing Directory Bucket

Also unable to adopt an existing Directory Bucket, the following is the yaml configuration of adopted bucket:

apiVersion: s3.services.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: Bucket
metadata:
  name: test-directory-buckets--euw1-az3--x-s3
  annotations:
    services.k8s.aws/region: eu-west-1
    services.k8s.aws/adoption-policy: "adopt"
    services.k8s.aws/adoption-fields: |
        {"name": "test-directory-buckets--euw1-az3--x-s3"}

When applying this resource as a regular general-purpose bucket (regular name like my-bucket) the operation succeeds. When trying to adopt a Directory Bucket, s3-controller error logs:

{
  "level": "error",
  "ts": "2025-10-20T09:37:39.241Z",
  "msg": "Reconciler error",
  "controller": "bucket",
  "controllerGroup": "s3.services.k8s.aws",
  "controllerKind": "Bucket",
  "Bucket":
    {
      "name": "test-directory-buckets--euw1-az3--x-s3",
      "namespace": "my-team",
    },
  "namespace": "my-team",
  "name": "test-directory-buckets--euw1-az3--x-s3",
  "reconcileID": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
  "error": "adopted resource not found",
  "stacktrace": "sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller[...]).reconcileHandler\n\t/go/pkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.20.4/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:347\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller[...]).processNextWorkItem\n\t/go/pkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.20.4/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:294\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller[...]).Start.func2.2\n\t/go/pkg/mod/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime@v0.20.4/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:255",
}

I am fairly certain that when s3-controller attempts to adopt this resource it preforms ListBuckets on the AWS account, which is not supported for Directory Buckets.

Expected outcome
Bucket of type DirectoryBucket (S3 Express) is created and synchronized.

Environment

• Kubernetes version -- 1.28.14
• Using EKS (yes/no), if so version? -- no
• AWS service targeted (S3, RDS, etc.) -- S3 (controller version 1.1.1 / 1.0.32)

[github-actions]

Hello @Itai-Melamed 👋 Thank you for opening an issue in ACK! A maintainer will triage this issue soon.

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[Itai-Melamed]

Looking at the s3-controller generator.yaml i see that in s3-controller/#147 (move to sdk v2), the necessary fields for Directory Buckets Creation API were ignored.

Are Directory buckets supported by the s3 controller?

[knottnt]

@Itai-Melamed We'll need to update the Bucket CRD to support the CreateBucketConfiguration.Location and
CreateBucketConfiguration.Bucket to allow for the creation of Directory Buckets.

[Itai-Melamed]

Sounds good, do you have an estimate as to when that could happen?

Thanks.