"declare copy-namespaces no-preserve, inherit;" must come first:
$ cat e declare option output:omit-xml-declaration "no"; declare copy-namespaces no-preserve, inherit; <z/> $ basex e Stopped at line 2, column 8 in /tmp/e: [XPST0003] Unexpected end of query: 'copy-namespaces...'. $ cat f declare copy-namespaces no-preserve, inherit; declare option output:omit-xml-declaration "no"; <z/> $ basex f <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <z/> $ apt-cache policy basex basex: Installed: 7.0.2-1