Thanks for the report — you are right that the --help rendering misled you.

The flag had this clap wiring (num_args = 0..=1 + default_missing_value = "" + a validator), which made the usage line render as --allow-build[=<PKG>]. The bracketed [=<PKG>] reads as "value optional" by convention, even though we then rejected the empty/bare form. We did it that way so the bare-form error could be byte-identical to pnpms wording (for scripts that grep stderr), but the help-output cost is not worth it.

I have a fix in flight that drops num_args = 0..=1 so the help line reads --allow-build=<PKG> (no brackets) and the bare form gives a clearer diagnostic:

$ aube add somepkg --allow-build
error: equal sign is needed when assigning values to --allow-build=<PKG>

The explicit empty form --allow-build= still emits pnpms verbatim "missing a package name" message, since thats the form a real pnpm-script port is most likely to hit.

This comment was generated by Claude.