I noticed that if you call "guix COMMAND" for some COMMANDs without any options given, they produce something which is not very useful to the user. I first noticed it with guix pack: When "guix pack" is run without any options, it builds an empty pack: $ guix pack /gnu/store/2ys9fn6h95209piqhyxli5pf2c4mp7zp-tarball-pack.tar.gz $ tar tzvf /gnu/store/2ys9fn6h95209piqhyxli5pf2c4mp7zp-tarball-pack.tar.gz drwxrwxr-t root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:00 ./gnu/store/ dr-xr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:00 ./gnu/store/w659mjmzwyhv62sd35y2pv5nrg5xkl7j-profile/ dr-xr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:00 ./gnu/store/w659mjmzwyhv62sd35y2pv5nrg5xkl7j-profile/etc/ -r--r--r-- root/root 414 1970-01-01 01:00 ./gnu/store/w659mjmzwyhv62sd35y2pv5nrg5xkl7j-profile/etc/profile -r--r--r-- root/root 37 1970-01-01 01:00 ./gnu/store/w659mjmzwyhv62sd35y2pv5nrg5xkl7j-profile/manifest I think from a user perspective it would be better to print a help message and not build an empty pack. On the other hand, I tried out other guix commands and at least it is a consistent behaviour, they start with the default values, like "guix graph" outputs just an empty graph. "guix system" complains it needs a subcommand, which is a different case. But then again we have this complaint: guix system container guix system: error: wrong number of arguments for action 'container' WDYT? Björn