Is it possible to pass a flag to Gulp to have it run tasks in different ways?

Gulp doesn't offer any kind of util for that, but you can use one of the many command args parsers. I like yargs. Should be:

var argv = require('yargs').argv;

gulp.task('my-task', function() {
    return gulp.src(argv.a == 1 ? options.SCSS_SOURCE : options.OTHER_SOURCE)
        .pipe(sass({style:'nested'}))
        .pipe(autoprefixer('last 10 version'))
        .pipe(concat('style.css'))
        .pipe(gulp.dest(options.SCSS_DEST));
});

You can also combine it with gulp-if to conditionally pipe the stream, very useful for dev vs. prod building:

var argv = require('yargs').argv,
    gulpif = require('gulp-if'),
    rename = require('gulp-rename'),
    uglify = require('gulp-uglify');

gulp.task('my-js-task', function() {
  gulp.src('src/**/*.js')
    .pipe(concat('out.js'))
    .pipe(gulpif(argv.production, uglify()))
    .pipe(gulpif(argv.production, rename({suffix: '.min'})))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('dist/'));
});

And call with gulp my-js-task or gulp my-js-task --production.

Edit

gulp-util is deprecated and should be avoid, so it's recommended to use minimist instead, which gulp-util already used.

So I've changed some lines in my gulpfile to remove gulp-util:

var argv = require('minimist')(process.argv.slice(2));

gulp.task('styles', function() {
  return gulp.src(['src/styles/' + (argv.theme || 'main') + '.scss'])
    …
});

Original

In my project I use the following flag:

gulp styles --theme literature

Gulp offers an object gulp.env for that. It's deprecated in newer versions, so you must use gulp-util for that. The tasks looks like this:

var util = require('gulp-util');

gulp.task('styles', function() {
  return gulp.src(['src/styles/' + (util.env.theme ? util.env.theme : 'main') + '.scss'])
    .pipe(compass({
        config_file: './config.rb',
        sass   : 'src/styles',
        css    : 'dist/styles',
        style  : 'expanded'

    }))
    .pipe(autoprefixer('last 2 version', 'safari 5', 'ie 8', 'ie 9', 'ff 17', 'opera 12.1', 'ios 6', 'android 4'))
    .pipe(livereload(server))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('dist/styles'))
    .pipe(notify({ message: 'Styles task complete' }));
});

The environment setting is available during all subtasks. So I can use this flag on the watch task too:

gulp watch --theme literature

And my styles task also works.

Ciao Ralf

Here's a quick recipe I found:

gulpfile.js

var gulp   = require('gulp');

// npm install gulp yargs gulp-if gulp-uglify
var args   = require('yargs').argv;
var gulpif = require('gulp-if');
var uglify = require('gulp-uglify');

var isProduction = args.env === 'production';

gulp.task('scripts', function() {
  return gulp.src('**/*.js')
    .pipe(gulpif(isProduction, uglify())) // only minify if production
    .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
});

CLI

gulp scripts --env production

Original Ref (not available anymore): https://github.com/gulpjs/gulp/blob/master/docs/recipes/pass-params-from-cli.md

Alternative with minimist

From Updated Ref: https://github.com/gulpjs/gulp/blob/master/docs/recipes/pass-arguments-from-cli.md

gulpfile.js

// npm install --save-dev gulp gulp-if gulp-uglify minimist

var gulp = require('gulp');
var gulpif = require('gulp-if');
var uglify = require('gulp-uglify');

var minimist = require('minimist');

var knownOptions = {
  string: 'env',
  default: { env: process.env.NODE_ENV || 'production' }
};

var options = minimist(process.argv.slice(2), knownOptions);

gulp.task('scripts', function() {
  return gulp.src('**/*.js')
    .pipe(gulpif(options.env === 'production', uglify())) // only minify if production
    .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
});

CLI

gulp scripts --env production