I was testing a recent modification to Ansible's portage module. One thing being tested was --jobs and --load-average without arguments. I thought there was a bug because I was not seeing --load-average being logged in emerge.log Example emerge --getbinpkg --usepkg --jobs --update nano curl emerge.log 1519087149: Started emerge on: Feb 19, 2018 19:39:09 1519087149: *** emerge --getbinpkg --usepkg --jobs --update nano curl But when I do the following, --load-average is not logged emerge --getbinpkg --update --usepkg --jobs --load-average nano curl emerge.log 1519087595: Started emerge on: Feb 19, 2018 19:46:34 1519087595: *** emerge --jobs --getbinpkg --usepkg --update nano curl Jobs will show up with or without arguments. --load-average will only show up a value is specified. It seems like it should show up regardless. Since it is a valid option alone. It maybe based on usage in order to be logged. I am not clear there on that aspect. There maybe a logical reason it is not logged intentionally. I was just assuming, it was logging the exact command being run. Which if that is the idea, then its a bug that needs to be addressed. I also tried, kept the one with value stripped out the other emerge --getbinpkg --update --usepkg --jobs --load-average --load-average=1.0 nano curl emerge.log 1519087917: Started emerge on: Feb 19, 2018 19:51:57 1519087917: *** emerge --update --usepkg --getbinpkg --jobs --load-average=1.0 nano curl