brew bundle dump --all switch gone.

[mjpieters]

brew doctor output

Your system is ready to brew.

Verification

• I ran brew update twice and am still able to reproduce my issue.
• My "brew doctor output" above says Your system is ready to brew or a definitely unrelated Tier message.
• This issue's title and/or description do not reference a single formula e.g. brew install wget. If they do, open an issue at https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/new/choose instead.

brew config output

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 5.1.12-8-ge0cac3e
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: e0cac3e1525c42cca6357961107c665662c19e98
Last commit: 4 hours ago
Branch: main
Core tap JSON: 19 May 12:40 UTC
Core cask tap JSON: 19 May 12:40 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /opt/homebrew
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_DISPLAY: /var/run/com.apple.launchd.owgDVO8tAF/org.xquartz:0
HOMEBREW_DOWNLOAD_CONCURRENCY: 20
HOMEBREW_FORBID_PACKAGES_FROM_PATHS: set
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 10
HOMEBREW_SORBET_RUNTIME: set
Homebrew Ruby: 4.0.4 => /opt/homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/4.0.4/bin/ruby
CPU: deca-core 64-bit arm_firestorm_icestorm
Clang: 21.0.0 build 2100
Git: 2.54.0 => /opt/homebrew/bin/git
Curl: 8.7.1 => /usr/bin/curl
macOS: 26.4.1-arm64
CLT: 26.4.1.0.1775747724
Xcode: N/A
Rosetta 2: false

What were you trying to do (and why)?

I've automated tracking and backing up what I have installed on my system with (roughly):

brew bundle dump --file="Brewfile" --force --all --no-upgrade --describe

This broke after commit f38cd4b, which removed the --all switch, but I don't think it was intentional.

What happened (include all command output)?

The brew bundle dump command now fails with:

Usage: brew bundle dump:
   Write all installed casks/formulae/images/taps into a Brewfile in the
current directory or to a custom file specified with the --file option. This
is useful as an installed-state snapshot and can be kept in version control and
diffed.

 -d, --debug                      Display any debugging information.
 -q, --quiet                      Make some output more quiet.
 -v, --verbose                    Make some output more verbose.
 -h, --help                       Show this message.
     --file                       Read from or write to the Brewfile from
                                  this location. Use --file=- to pipe to
                                  stdin/stdout.
 -g, --global                     Read from or write to the Brewfile from
                                  $HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_FILE_GLOBAL (if set),
                                  ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/homebrew/Brewfile (if
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set), ~/.homebrew/Brewfile or ~/.Brewfile otherwise.
     --install                    Run install before dumping dependencies.
 -f, --force                      Overwrite an existing Brewfile.
     --formula, --formulae, --brews
                                  Dump Homebrew formula dependencies.
     --cask, --casks              Dump Homebrew cask dependencies.
     --tap, --taps                Dump Homebrew tap dependencies.
     --mas                        Dump Mac App Store dependencies.
     --vscode                     Dump VSCode (and forks/variants) extensions.
     --go                         Dump Go packages.
     --cargo                      Dump Cargo packages.
     --uv                         Dump uv tools.
     --flatpak                    Dump Flatpak packages. Note: Linux only.
     --krew                       Dump Krew plugins.
     --npm                        Dump npm packages.
     --no-vscode                  dump without VSCode (and forks/variants)
                                  extensions. Enabled by default if
                                  $HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_VSCODE is set.
     --no-go                      dump without Go packages. Enabled by
                                  default if $HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_GO is
                                  set.
     --no-cargo                   dump without Cargo packages. Enabled by
                                  default if $HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_CARGO
                                  is set.
     --no-uv                      dump without uv tools. Enabled by default
                                  if $HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_UV is set.
     --no-flatpak                 dump without Flatpak packages. Enabled by
                                  default if $HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_FLATPAK
                                  is set.
     --no-krew                    dump without Krew plugins. Enabled by
                                  default if $HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_KREW is
                                  set.
     --no-npm                     dump without npm packages. Enabled by
                                  default if $HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_NPM is
                                  set.
     --describe                   Add a description comment above each line,
                                  unless the dependency does not have a
                                  description. Enabled by default if
$HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DESCRIBE is set.
     --no-restart                 Do not add restart_service to formula
                                  lines.

Error: Invalid usage: The `dump` subcommand does not accept the `--all` switch.

What did you expect to happen?

I expected the command to still work, and if the removal of --all is intended, for there to be a warning period and guidance on how to use the command differently.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions (by running brew commands)

brew bundle dump --file=Brewfile" --force --all --no-upgrade --describe

[MikeMcQuaid]

This broke after commit f38cd4b, which removed the --all switch, but I don't think it was intentional.

It was sort of neither intentional nor not. We had a bunch of flags that were being implicitly accepted but didn't do anything.

How does the behaviour without --all not meet your needs?

[mjpieters]

This broke after commit f38cd4b, which removed the --all switch, but I don't think it was intentional.

It was sort of neither intentional nor not. We had a bunch of flags that were being implicitly accepted but didn't do anything.

How does the behaviour without --all not meet your needs?

Testing it out now does show that my usecase can indeed be met without the switch.

It was not at all clear from the documentation that --all was redundant. It's existence, together with each of the --cask, --tap, --mas, --vscode, etc. suggested to me that not using it meant some dependency types would not be included in the dump. The documentation could do with updating there because the per-dependency switches still exist. E.g.:

Write all installed casks/formulae/images/taps into a Brewfile in the current directory or to a custom file specified with the --file option. This is useful as an installed-state snapshot and can be kept in version control and diffed.

By default, all supported dependency types will be included. Set the corresponding HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_[DEPENDENCY_TYPE] environment variable or use the appropriate --no-[dependency-type] switch to disable a dependency type, or use --[dependency-type] switches to override types disabled by environment variables.

However, at the very least, don't just remove switches from commands without a deprecation period where using the switch triggers a warning, plus a clear message in the changelog? That would apply to other switches too; e.g. in testing the command without --all I also noticed that I also should drop the --no-upgrade switch, which I guess was only intended to be used with brew bundle [install].

[MikeMcQuaid]

It was not at all clear from the documentation that --all was redundant.

I agree. Hence the updates to both the documentation and command handling to make this obvious.

However, at the very least, don't just remove switches from commands without a deprecation period where using the switch triggers a warning, plus a clear message in the changelog?

The command parser was silently accepting almost any flag combination, no matter how invalid, for every command. Implementing the "deprecation" for all of these no-op combinations feels excessive and overkill when we're not actually changing functionality. The outcome for you would be exactly the same: you need to change your workflows/scripts.

This change was indirectly documented in our release notes. It was not obvious that so many people were running these commands with "wrong" flags so I'm glad we've tightened this up.