phacility/phabricator · warning · PhutilArgumentUsageException

Select caches to purge with "--all" or "--caches". Available

Error message

Select caches to purge with "--all" or "--caches". Available caches are: %s.

What it means

Thrown by bin/cache purge when neither --all nor --caches is supplied. The workflow refuses to guess which caches to purge, and the message enumerates the available purger keys from PhabricatorCachePurger::getAllPurgers() so you can pick one.

Source

Thrown at src/applications/cache/management/PhabricatorCacheManagementPurgeWorkflow.php:35

            'name' => 'caches',
            'param' => 'keys',
            'help' => pht('Purge a specific set of caches.'),
          ),
        ));
  }

  public function execute(PhutilArgumentParser $args) {
    $all_purgers = PhabricatorCachePurger::getAllPurgers();

    $is_all = $args->getArg('all');
    $key_list = $args->getArg('caches');

    if ($is_all && phutil_nonempty_string($key_list)) {
      throw new PhutilArgumentUsageException(
        pht(
          'Specify either "--all" or "--caches", not both.'));
    } else if (!$is_all && !phutil_nonempty_string($key_list)) {
      throw new PhutilArgumentUsageException(
        pht(
          'Select caches to purge with "--all" or "--caches". Available '.
          'caches are: %s.',
          implode(', ', array_keys($all_purgers))));
    }

    if ($is_all) {
      $purgers = $all_purgers;
    } else {
      $key_list = preg_split('/[\s,]+/', $key_list);
      $purgers = array();
      foreach ($key_list as $key) {
        if (isset($all_purgers[$key])) {
          $purgers[$key] = $all_purgers[$key];
        } else {
          throw new PhutilArgumentUsageException(
            pht(
              'Cache purger "%s" is not recognized. Available caches '.

View on GitHub (pinned to 5720a38cfe)

Solutions

1. Add --all to purge every registered cache: 'bin/cache purge --all'.
2. Or pass one or more keys from the list printed in the error message: 'bin/cache purge --caches general' (keys are comma/space separated).
3. Re-run with no flags to make the workflow print the current valid cache key list for your install.

Example fix

// before
$ bin/cache purge
// after
$ bin/cache purge --all

$is_all = (bool)$args->getArg('all');
$caches = $args->getArg('caches');
if (!$is_all && !phutil_nonempty_string($caches)) {
  // default to --all explicitly, or fail fast with guidance:
  $args->setArg('all', true);
}
$valid = array_keys(PhabricatorCachePurger::getAllPurgers());
// surface $valid to the operator so they can pick a key

try {
  $workflow->execute($args);
} catch (PhutilArgumentUsageException $ex) {
  fwrite(STDERR, $ex->getMessage()."\n");
  exit(1);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running 'bin/cache purge' with no flags; or passing --caches with an empty string value (phutil_nonempty_string fails). A misspelled flag like --cache also leaves getArg('caches') null.

Common situations: Assuming bare 'purge' defaults to purging everything; typo'd flag names silently ignored by the argument parser; scripts written before the --caches selector existed.

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

• Specify either "--all" or "--caches", not both.
• Cache purger "%s" is not recognized. Available caches are: %
• Request parameter "%s" is not formatted properly. Expected a
• Received "multipart/form-data" request with no "boundary".
• Expected "multipart/form-data" parse to end in state "epilog

AI-assisted analysis of phacility/phabricator@5720a38cfe (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f98eafbe2e80cff3. Report an issue: GitHub.