... pacman operations and their sub-options are allowed. Some even hold special meaning in Aura as well. -S yields pacman packages and only pacman packages. This agrees with the above. In Aura, the -A operation is introduced for obtaining AUR packages. -A comes with sub-options you're used to (-u, -s, -i, etc.). PKGBUILDs from the AUR can contain anything. It's a user's responsibility to verify the contents of a PKGBUILD before building, but people can make mistakes and overlook details.