Use nargs='?' (or nargs='*' if you need more than one dir)

parser.add_argument('dir', nargs='?', default=os.getcwd())

extended example:

>>> import os, argparse
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('-v', action='store_true')
_StoreTrueAction(option_strings=['-v'], dest='v', nargs=0, const=True, default=False, type=None, choices=None, help=None, metavar=None)
>>> parser.add_argument('dir', nargs='?', default=os.getcwd())
_StoreAction(option_strings=[], dest='dir', nargs='?', const=None, default='/home/vinay', type=None, choices=None, help=None, metavar=None)
>>> parser.parse_args('somedir -v'.split())
Namespace(dir='somedir', v=True)
>>> parser.parse_args('-v'.split())
Namespace(dir='/home/vinay', v=True)
>>> parser.parse_args(''.split())
Namespace(dir='/home/vinay', v=False)
>>> parser.parse_args(['somedir'])
Namespace(dir='somedir', v=False)
>>> parser.parse_args('somedir -h -v'.split())
usage: [-h] [-v] [dir]

positional arguments:
  dir

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit
  -v

The premise behind your question is mistaken.

>>> import argparse
>>> p = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> p.add_argument('-a')
>>> p.parse_args()
Namespace(a=None)

The -a argument is already optional by default (you don't need required=False), and its default is already None, ensuring that args.a exists without any manual intervention.

You have to opt-in to having no default at all.

>>> p.add_argument("-b", default=argparse.SUPPRESS)
>>> p.parse_args()
Namespace(a=None)

So yes, it probably is a good idea to have some default, and argparse acknowledges that by providing one.

After a little more reading in the documentation I found what I needed: nargs='?'. This is used with the store action, and does exactly what I want.

Here is an example:

>>> import argparse
>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
>>> parser.add_argument('--head',
                        dest='size',
                        const=10,
                        default=80,
                        action='store',
                        nargs='?',
                        type=int,
                        help='Only print the head of the output')
>>> parser.parse_args(''.split())
... Namespace(size=80)
>>> parser.parse_args('--head'.split())
... Namespace(size=10)
>>> parser.parse_args('--head 15'.split())
... Namespace(size=15)

Source: http://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html#nargs

Parameters starting with - or -- are usually considered optional. All other parameters are positional parameters and as such required by design (like positional function arguments). It is possible to require optional arguments, but this is a bit against their design. Since they are still part of the non-positional arguments, they will still be listed under the confusing header “optional arguments” even if they are required. The missing square brackets in the usage part however show that they are indeed required.

See also the documentation:

In general, the argparse module assumes that flags like -f and --bar indicate optional arguments, which can always be omitted at the command line.

Note: Required options are generally considered bad form because users expect options to be optional, and thus they should be avoided when possible.

That being said, the headers “positional arguments” and “optional arguments” in the help are generated by two argument groups in which the arguments are automatically separated into. Now, you could “hack into it” and change the name of the optional ones, but a far more elegant solution would be to create another group for “required named arguments” (or whatever you want to call them):

Copyparser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Foo')
parser.add_argument('-o', '--output', help='Output file name', default='stdout')
requiredNamed = parser.add_argument_group('required named arguments')
requiredNamed.add_argument('-i', '--input', help='Input file name', required=True)
parser.parse_args(['-h'])

Copyusage: [-h] [-o OUTPUT] -i INPUT

Foo

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
                        Output file name

required named arguments:
  -i INPUT, --input INPUT
                        Input file name

You are not using argparse correctly - the arguments are not set on the parser, but on another object that is returned by the parse_args method.

What you should be doing is this:

parser.add_argument("-f", "--filename", help="set output filename")
args = parser.parse_args()
if args.filename is None:
    ...

Few notes:

• action="store" is the default, specifying it does nothing useful

• You probably want to use parse_args instead of parse_known_args, because it is simpler to use and raising arror if unknown argument is specified is what you want

• argparse documentation will tell you all of this and much more, it also has a lot of examples