Pass few arguments

Give a function at most three arguments. When it needs more, pass one named object that groups them.

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated 20 October 2026.

How to do it

Group arguments that travel together into a parameter object or DTO, such as ShippingAddress. Replace boolean flags with two functions, because a flag means the function does two things.

Example

// Bad
createOrder(customerId, street, city, postcode, country, true);
// Good
createOrder({ customerId, shippingAddress, giftWrap: true });

How to check

ESLint max-params set to 3, PHPMD ExcessiveParameterList with a minimum of 4, or Pylint too-many-arguments with max-args=3.

For agents: if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in Based on the Agent Wranglers architecture playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/names-and-functions/few-arguments.