Good idea 👍

If the goal is to handle deprecation in input options/arguments, we can add a ?string $deprecationMessage = null argument instead of bool $isHidden. If this argument is set:

• --help hides the deprecated option/argument (--show-deprecated will display it)
• trigger a deprecation if this option/argument is used
• display a warning if this option/argument is used

WDYT ?

Sounds useful. If no one is working on it right now, I'll create a PR for that if it's okay. :) I've been working with Symfony for qa couple of time but this would be my first time contributing back ^^ Any support is welcome I want to help more in the feature :)

Given deprecating input options is the main use case, why not deprecate: true directly instead? And make the console in charge of triggering ?
I can also imagine how hidden options could be useful on its own (similar to hidden commands), but I wonder if this shouldn't be 2 distinct features.

Instead of adding a other argument, what about using flags instead? It's done for that

Given deprecating input options is the main use case, why not deprecate: true directly instead? And make the console in charge of triggering ?

It was my first thought but how can we set the deprecation message? It could be useful to give an alternative.

Maybe an InputOption::setDeprecated() method accepting a custom message? Similar to what we have in Config, DependencyInjection and Routing

WDYT ?

I see it as a trade-off.

With "deprecations", we are giving an opinionated use for the "hide option" feature, which gives the developers a clear and well-integrated path for deprecations.

With "hide option", we are giving a tool that developers can use as they see fit.

I personally prefer "hide option" for two reasons:

• It's not complicated to deprecate an option once you have isHidden - you just print a message.
• We already have setHidden on Command, it would be nice to be consistent.

Although admittedly, we lose some of the opinionated advantages such as --show-deprecated.

What about both?

class SendCommand extends Command
{
    protected function configure()
    {
        $this
            ->setName('app:send')
            ->addOption( 'notify-hidden', null, InputOption::VALUE_NONE | InputOption::HIDDEN, 'Send a notification upon completion.', false )
            ->addOption( 'notify-deprecated', null, InputOption::VALUE_NONE | InputOption::DEPRECATED, '[Deprecated since 1.2.3. Will be removed in 2.0] Send a notification upon completion.', false )
    }
}

If using --notify-hidden, just hide it from --help.

If using --notify-deprecated, set it as hidden and print a generic deprecation message when used, such as:

The option "--notify_deprecated" is deprecated.

If running --help -v, it shows the deprecated and hidden options.

PS: I haven't considered deeply if this applies for Arguments as well, I'll leave it to you Symfony People 😄.

I'm building a CLI application using Console and I had two more instances where I wished I had hidden options.

1. Compositing Commands

I'm building a CLI tool that runs tests and spins up custom environments, eg:

• qit run:e2e

Under the hood, this will call qit env:up with some parameters. I would like to have more options to use when calling it internally, that I might not want to expose to the user.

2. Option Aliases

Some of the parameters of qit env:up are pluralized, eg:

• qit env:up --plugins gutenberg --plugins wp-staging --themes storefront --requires my-custom-handler.php

I pluralize it because these options are arrays, and they match what I read from config files (with Serializer, btw), eg:

qit-env.yml

plugins:
  - wp-staging
  - gutenberg
themes:
  - storefront
requires:
  - my-custom-handler.php

Pluralization makes sense on config context, but not on options (array) context, as a user might intuitively use --plugin gutenberg instead.

If I had hidden options, I could programmatically create pluralized/non-pluralized options (where non-pluralized would be hidden).

I am currently working on an implementation based on @Luc45 s idea.

• InputOption Flags for HIDDEN and DEPRECATED.
• Deprecation warnings will be printed before calling the execute method.
• Hide options that are not visible in completion
• The Help command includes a Hidden Option to print hidden options in the descriptors.
• The Help command colours deprecated and non-hidden options

The implementation is finished, I just have to adapt and extend the phpunit tests.