The makefiles scripts create a variable with all the go files
that are part of the Kubernetes source tree, including staging.
As today, this variable has a size of < 100kb
wc .make/all_go_dirs.mk
2326 2326 98905 .make/all_go_dirs.mk
This variable is passed as argument in the Makefiles, where it
is expanded. In Linux, there is a limit to the max size of
the arguments MAX_ARG_STRLEN.
If the arguments go above 128k, you get a nice:
execvp: /usr/bin/env: Argument list too long
If you, for whatever reason, do some go mod vendor inside the
hack/tools folder, these files will be added to the variable
and most probably you'll go above the limit and get that error.
Then, you'll learn a lot about Makefils, shell expansion, strace,
execpve, ARG_MAX and MAX_ARG_STRLEN,until you realize what is
the real problem :).