3.1 Commands

Commands are not distinguished from options except for the fact that only one command is allowed.

gpg2 may be run with no commands, in which case it will perform a reasonable action depending on the type of file it is given as input (an encrypted message is decrypted, a signature is verified, a file containing keys is listed).

Please remember that option as well as command parsing stops as soon as a non-option is encountered, you can explicitly stop parsing by using the special option --.