Summary

The archon version command works without a git repo, but the conventional flag aliases (--version, -v, -V, -version) all hit the git-repo check and exit with an error. Users expect any of these to print version info from anywhere — that's the convention node, npm, bun, and git follow.

Reproduction

From any non-git directory (e.g. C:\Users\<user> on Windows or ~ on Unix):

$ archon version
Archon CLI v0.3.9
  Platform: win32-x64
  Build: source (bun)
  Database: sqlite
  Git commit: unknown

$ archon -v
Error: Not in a git repository.
The Archon CLI must be run from within a git repository.
Either navigate to a git repo or use --cwd to specify one.

$ archon --version
Error: Not in a git repository.
...

$ archon -version
Error: Not in a git repository.
...

Root cause

packages/cli/src/cli.ts only short-circuits the git-repo check for the literal positional commands listed in noGitCommands (['version', 'help', 'setup', 'chat', 'continue', 'serve', 'skill']). Flag-style aliases like --version go through parseArgs (where they're either ignored or parsed as values.verbose) and then fall through to the git-repo check with no command, which fails.

Expected behavior

Notes

• -v is the existing short alias for --verbose. When used alone (no command), there's no workflow to be verbose about, so falling back to version output is harmless and matches user expectation.
• Fix should bypass parseArgs for these aliases so they work even from directories where parsing later checks would fail.

Tested on: Windows 11, source build (bun), Archon CLI v0.3.9.