multica-ai/multica · error

--clear cannot be combined with --description / --descriptio

Error message

--clear cannot be combined with --description / --description-stdin / --description-file

What it means

`multica user profile update` rejects the combination of the --clear flag with any of --description, --description-stdin, or --description-file. Clearing and setting a value in one invocation is ambiguous, so the command refuses rather than picking a winner.

Source

Thrown at server/cmd/multica/cmd_user.go:102

	}

	printUserProfileTable(os.Stdout, me)
	return nil
}

func runUserProfileUpdate(cmd *cobra.Command, _ []string) error {
	// `--clear` is its own flag (not "pass an empty string") because cobra's
	// default value for a Changed("") flag would otherwise be ambiguous with
	// "user typed `--description ""`". Keep both forms supported — the inline
	// empty string is what someone scripting bash would reach for.
	clearFlag, _ := cmd.Flags().GetBool("clear")
	desc, hasDesc, err := resolveTextFlag(cmd, "description")
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	if clearFlag && hasDesc {
		return fmt.Errorf("--clear cannot be combined with --description / --description-stdin / --description-file")
	}
	if !clearFlag && !hasDesc && !cmd.Flags().Changed("description") {
		return fmt.Errorf("nothing to update; pass --description, --description-stdin, --description-file, or --clear")
	}

	if clearFlag {
		desc = ""
	}

	body := map[string]any{"profile_description": desc}

	client, err := newAPIClient(cmd)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	ctx, cancel := cli.APIContext(context.Background())
	defer cancel()

View on GitHub (pinned to 2c0912b6ec)

Solutions

1. Split into two steps: run `--clear` alone, then a second command with the new --description.
2. If the intent is to replace the description, drop --clear and just pass --description.
3. Audit shell scripts for unconditional --clear alongside a description flag.

Example fix

# before
multica user profile update --clear --description "new bio"

# after
multica user profile update --description "new bio"

if [ -n "$DESC" ] && [ "$CLEAR" = "true" ]; then echo 'cannot combine --clear with a description'; exit 1; fi

When it happens

Trigger: Running e.g. `multica user profile update --clear --description "bio"`, or --clear together with --description-stdin/-file. resolveTextFlag reports hasDesc=true whenever any of the three description flag variants was supplied.

Common situations: Shell scripts that append flags conditionally end up emitting both --clear and --description in the same invocation; copy-pasted command lines from runbooks.

Related errors

• nothing to update; pass --description, --description-stdin,
• download timeout must be greater than zero
• --name is required
• --slug is required
• --issue-prefix cannot be empty; omit it to use the server-ge

AI-assisted analysis of multica-ai/multica@2c0912b6ec (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d76daa07e94c2223. Report an issue: GitHub.