I know, I know, error detection, handling, and messaging is hard. I know.

but...

$ yarn --no-color --no-progress help
yarn install v0.23.2
error `install` has been replaced with `add` to add new dependencies. Run "yarn add help" instead.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/install for documentation about this command.

When in fact the problem turned out to be more that it doesn't understand/support "--no-color" etc. (Which, of course, is just the kicker to the boy parts, that it doesn't have that feature.)