This is very much a duplicate of xcode-select active developer directory error except none of those solutions worked for me.
$ sudo xcode-select --reset
$ sudo xcodebuild -license accept
xcode-select: error: tool 'xcodebuild' requires Xcode, but active developer directory '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools' is a command line tools instance
$ sudo xcode-select --install
xcode-select: error: command line tools are already installed, use "Software Update" to install updates
I don't even have xcode on my machine.
The fix for me here was that my [ XCode > Preferences > Locations > Command Line Tools ] dropdown was empty. No idea why. But after clicking it and selecting the only available option my "active developer directory" error finally went away.
Mac Os 12.3.1 | Date: 5/4/22