Multiple labels in node_readiness_label & empty postgresql spec nodeAffinity triggers a perma-diff in cluster statefulset

• Which image of the operator are you using? ghcr.io/zalando/postgres-operator:v1.12.2
• Where do you run it - cloud or metal? Kubernetes or OpenShift? Cloud, K8s, GCP & AWS
• Are you running Postgres Operator in production? yes
• Type of issue? Bug report

We encountered an issue where when we defined two labels in the node_readiness_label the postgresql cluster's with empty nodeAffinity constantly showed a drift in the postgresql statefulset and triggered a recreation of the STS and switchover of the database.

postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"info","msg":"reason: new statefulset's pod affinity does not match the current one","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"replacing statefulset","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}

here's the full debug log:

postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"info","msg":"statefulset platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres is not in the desired state and needs to be updated","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-          terminationMessagePath: /dev/termination-log,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-          terminationMessagePolicy: File,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-          terminationMessagePath: /dev/termination-log,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-          terminationMessagePolicy: File,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-      restartPolicy: Always,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-      dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-      serviceAccount: postgres-pod,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-                    key: postgres_ready,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"+                    key: nodepool,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-                      true","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"+                      platform","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-                    key: nodepool,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"+                    key: postgres_ready,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-                      platform","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"+                      true","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-      schedulerName: default-scheduler,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-      kind: PersistentVolumeClaim,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-      apiVersion: v1,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-      status: {","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-        phase: Pending","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-      }","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"+      status: {}","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}
postgres-operator-5cc587dcd5-bxdct postgres-operator {"cluster-name":"platform-harbor/ccs-harbor-postgres","level":"debug","msg":"-  revisionHistoryLimit: 10,","pkg":"cluster","time":"2025-07-01T22:34:45Z"}

The above was reproduced on multiple clusters & postgres instances with the following setup

OperatorConfiguration:

configuration:
  kubernetes:
    node_readiness_label:
      nodepool: "platform"
      postgres_ready: "true"

the cluster spec is very basic without spec.nodeAffinity

the produced StatefulSet appeared to be correct:

      affinity:
        nodeAffinity:
          requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
            nodeSelectorTerms:
            - matchExpressions:
              - key: nodepool
                operator: In
                values:
                - platform
              - key: postgres_ready
                operator: In
                values:
                - "true"

however per the log above, the operator constantly detects a diff and triggers a recreation of the postgres cluster STS, from what I can tell it seem to want to flip the order of the keys in the match expression:

remove key: postgres_ready in first position
add key: nodepool in first position
remove key: nodepool in second position
add key: postgres_ready in second position

which is the order of how the keys are defined in node_readiness_label? but I might be misreading the debug log on this.

we currently worked around this issue by removing the nodepool=platform label from node_readiness_label and defined it explicitly in the postgresql spec nodeAffinity field, this solved the issue for us.

Start in the operator's pkg/cluster logic using the reported OperatorConfiguration with two node_readiness_label entries and a cluster spec without nodeAffinity. Reproduce the StatefulSet comparison and verify that repeated reconciliations no longer report an affinity difference or recreate the StatefulSet.