Egonex-AI/Understand-Anything · error

Usage: node prepare-incremental.mjs <projectRoot> <baseCommi

Error message

Usage: node prepare-incremental.mjs <projectRoot> <baseCommit> [--exclude <patterns>]

What it means

parseArgs requires exactly two positional arguments: the project root and the base commit. Any other count (too few or too many) triggers this usage error, which documents the full accepted command line.

Source

Thrown at understand-anything-plugin/skills/understand/prepare-incremental.mjs:469

}

function parseArgs(argv) {
  const positionals = [];
  const excludePatterns = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < argv.length; i++) {
    const arg = argv[i];
    if (arg === '--exclude') {
      const value = argv[++i];
      if (!value || value.startsWith('--')) throw new Error('--exclude requires patterns');
      excludePatterns.push(...value.split(',').map(item => item.trim()).filter(Boolean));
    } else if (arg.startsWith('--')) {
      throw new Error(`Unknown option: ${arg}`);
    } else {
      positionals.push(arg);
    }
  }
  if (positionals.length !== 2) {
    throw new Error(
      'Usage: node prepare-incremental.mjs <projectRoot> <baseCommit> [--exclude <patterns>]',
    );
  }
  return { projectRoot: positionals[0], baseCommit: positionals[1], excludePatterns };
}

async function main() {
  const args = parseArgs(process.argv.slice(2));
  const projectRoot = realpathSync(args.projectRoot);
  const uaDir = resolveUaDir(projectRoot);
  const intermediateDir = join(uaDir, 'intermediate');
  mkdirSync(intermediateDir, { recursive: true });

  const baseCommit = resolveCommit(projectRoot, args.baseCommit);
  const headCommit = resolveCommit(projectRoot, 'HEAD');
  const dirtyPaths = relevantWorktreeChanges(projectRoot, args.excludePatterns);
  if (dirtyPaths.length > 0) {
    const preview = dirtyPaths.slice(0, 10).join(', ');

View on GitHub (pinned to 07edf82a04)

Solutions

1. Supply exactly two positionals: node prepare-incremental.mjs <projectRoot> <baseCommit>
2. Quote the project root if it contains spaces: node prepare-incremental.mjs "/path/with spaces" HEAD
3. Use a valid base commit (SHA, branch, or tag) as the second argument
4. Confirm the working directory/CI step invokes the script with the intended arguments

Example fix

// before
node prepare-incremental.mjs .
// after
node prepare-incremental.mjs . HEAD~1

const positionals = process.argv.slice(2).filter(a => !a.startsWith('--'));
if (positionals.length !== 2) {
  console.error('Usage: node prepare-incremental.mjs <projectRoot> <baseCommit> [--exclude <patterns>]');
  process.exit(1);
}

try {
  const parsed = parseArgs(argv);
} catch (err) {
  if (err.message.startsWith('Usage:')) {
    console.error(err.message);
    process.exit(1);
  }
  throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running the script with zero or one positional argument, or with extra stray positional arguments (e.g. unquoted paths with spaces adding a third positional).

Common situations: Forgetting the baseCommit argument, running the script from a README example with placeholders, or shell word-splitting an unquoted project path containing spaces into multiple positionals.

Understand the failure class

Background: "missing required argument" and "the following required arguments were not provided": what required-argument errors mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• Usage: node prepare-symbol-retry.mjs <projectRoot>
• Usage: node finalize-incremental.mjs <projectRoot>
• --exclude requires patterns
• Unknown option: ${arg}
• Invalid input: requires { projectRoot: string, sourceFilePat

AI-assisted analysis of Egonex-AI/Understand-Anything@07edf82a04 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bd68c76f6b689dc7. Report an issue: GitHub.