Invocation

$ astroid --help
  -h [ --help ]         print this help message
  -c [ --config ] arg   config file, default: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/astroid/config
  -n [ --new-config ]   make new default config, then exit
  -t [ --test-config ]  use test config (same as used when tests are run), only
                        makes sense from the source root
  -m [ --mailto ] arg   compose mail with mailto url or address
  --no-auto-poll        do not poll automatically
  -l [ --log ] arg      log to file
  -a [ --append-log ]   append to log file
  --disable-log         disable logging
  --log-level arg       set logging level (trace, debug, info, warning, error, 
                        fatal)
  --start-polling       indicate that external polling (external notmuch db R/W
                        operations) starts
  --stop-polling        indicate that external polling stops
  --refresh arg         refresh threads changed since lastmod
  --disable-plugins     disable plugins

Polling and refreshing

--refresh 0 will cause all thread-indexes to be completely refreshed.