diff --git a/pkg/app/usage.go b/pkg/app/usage.go
index e0f3f5bc9..1aae6362a 100644
--- a/pkg/app/usage.go
+++ b/pkg/app/usage.go
@@ -11,11 +11,12 @@ import (
 	"strings"
 	"text/template"
 
+	"github.com/fastly/kingpin"
+
 	"github.com/fastly/cli/pkg/cmd"
 	fsterr "github.com/fastly/cli/pkg/errors"
 	"github.com/fastly/cli/pkg/global"
 	"github.com/fastly/cli/pkg/text"
-	"github.com/fastly/kingpin"
 )
 
 // Usage returns a contextual usage string for the application. In order to deal
@@ -292,6 +293,13 @@ func processCommandInput(
 		return command, cmdName, help(vars, err)
 	}
 
+	if len(opts.Args) == 1 && opts.Args[0] == "--" {
+		return command, cmdName, fsterr.RemediationError{
+			Inner:       errors.New("-- is invalid input when not followed by a positional argument"),
+			Remediation: "If looking for help output try: `fastly help` for full command list or `fastly --help` for command summary.",
+		}
+	}
+
 	// NOTE: `fastly help`, no flags, or only globals, should skip conditional.
 	//
 	// This is because the `ctx` variable will be assigned a