[dwattttt]

> options that depend on options

What would you do for "top level option, which can be modified in two other ways"?

  (--option | --option-with-flag1 | --option-with-flag2 | --option-with-flag1-and-flag2)

would solve invalid representation, but is unwieldy.

Something that results in the usage string

  [--option [--flag1 --flag2]]

doesn't seem so bad at that point.

[sudahtigabulan]

I think I've seen it done like that

  --option flag1,flag2

(Maybe with another separator, as long as it doesn't need to be escaped.)

Another possibility is to make the main option an argument, like the subcommands in git, systemctl, and others:

  command option --flag1 --flag2

This depends on the specifics, though.

[dwattttt]

> --option flag1,flag2

Embedding a second parse step that the first parser doesn't deal with is done, but it's a rough compromise.

It feels like the difficulty in dealing with

  [--option [--flag1 --flag2]]

Is more to do with its expression in the language parsed to, than CLI elegance.