#1378·Pake

Misleading "too many arguments" error when --name contains spaces

Author: bst1nCreated Sep 15, 2026Updated Sep 15, 2026

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Motivation

On macOS 26.7 (pake-cli 3.16.4), running:

bash
pake https://translate.google.com --name Google Translate

fails with:

error: too many arguments. Expected 1 argument but got 2.

followed by the full help. Nothing points to --name, so it looks like names with spaces aren't supported at all.

This used to work: #876 made --name variadic, then 09a122dd6 ("Fix name compatibility") changed it back to --name <string>. Quoting the name (--name "Google Translate") is accepted, as the docs say.

Solution

When extra positional arguments follow --name, print a hint instead of the generic error, e.g.:

✕ Names with spaces must be quoted: --name "Google Translate"

Alternatives

Restore the variadic --name from #876, if the compatibility issue behind 09a122dd6 allows it.