caddyserver/caddy · error

at least one package name must be specified

Error message

at least one package name must be specified

What it means

Guard in cmdAddPackage: `caddy add-package` was invoked with zero positional arguments, so there is no module path to add. The command requires at least one package name, e.g. `caddy add-package github.com/foo/bar`.

Solutions

1. Pass one or more module paths: `caddy add-package github.com/caddy-dns/cloudflare github.com/mholt/caddy-ratelimit`
2. In scripts, guard the invocation: `[ -n "$PLUGINS" ] && caddy add-package $PLUGINS`

Example fix

# before
caddy add-package

# after
caddy add-package github.com/caddy-dns/cloudflare

[ "$#" -ge 1 ] || { echo 'usage: caddy add-package <module> [...]'; exit 1; }
caddy add-package "$@"

When it happens

Trigger: Running `caddy add-package` with no positional args, or with args consumed by flag parsing so that fl.Args() is empty.

Common situations: Scripts where the package list variable is empty (`caddy add-package $PLUGINS` with PLUGINS unset), or invoking the command expecting it to be interactive.

Related errors

• module name is required
• download failed
• invalid module name
• too many unflagged arguments
• command already registered

AI-assisted analysis of caddyserver/caddy@50e54ee279 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e9142ffe73104d33. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at cmd/packagesfuncs.go:70

	// accommodate module paths that have @ in them, but we can only tolerate that if there's also
	// a version, otherwise we don't know if it's a version separator or part of the file path
	lastVersionSplit := strings.LastIndex(arg, versionSplit)
	if lastVersionSplit < 0 {
		module = arg
	} else {
		module, version = arg[:lastVersionSplit], arg[lastVersionSplit+1:]
	}

	if module == "" {
		err = fmt.Errorf("module name is required")
	}

	return module, version, err
}

func cmdAddPackage(fl Flags) (int, error) {
	if len(fl.Args()) == 0 {
		return caddy.ExitCodeFailedStartup, fmt.Errorf("at least one package name must be specified")
	}
	_, nonstandard, _, err := getModules()
	if err != nil {
		return caddy.ExitCodeFailedStartup, fmt.Errorf("unable to enumerate installed plugins: %v", err)
	}
	pluginPkgs, err := getPluginPackages(nonstandard)
	if err != nil {
		return caddy.ExitCodeFailedStartup, err
	}

	for _, arg := range fl.Args() {
		module, version, err := splitModule(arg)
		if err != nil {
			return caddy.ExitCodeFailedStartup, fmt.Errorf("invalid module name: %v", err)
		}
		// only allow a version to be specified if it's different from the existing version
		if _, ok := pluginPkgs[module]; ok && (version == "" || pluginPkgs[module].Version == version) {
			return caddy.ExitCodeFailedStartup, fmt.Errorf("package is already added")

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