I am attempting to use the "wp import" command to import from an XML file. I tried typing this:

wp import --path /path/to/my/Wordpress-install filename.xml

This failed with this error message:

Error: This does not seem to be a WordPress installation.
Pass --path=`path/to/wordpress` or run `wp core download`.

This was confusing to me because I thought I was passing the --path variable. In other programming languages like Go you don't need the equals sign to attach the argument to the flag.

It might be helpful to check for empty arguments (you specified --path but didn't provide an argument), or print out what wp thinks that the argument is, ie.

Error: This (/home/kevin/tmp) does not seem to be a WordPress installation.
Pass --path=`path/to/wordpress` or run `wp core download`.