diff --git a/lib/compiler/Maker.zig b/lib/compiler/Maker.zig
index 565214d5d05cbe7978f3fc3538374cfc425b89dd..d743ff6647edd13b452666aefb51d0fb466ded90 100644
--- a/lib/compiler/Maker.zig
+++ b/lib/compiler/Maker.zig
@@ -283,11 +283,11 @@ pub fn main(init: process.Init.Minimal) !void {
                 cache_poison = .poisoned;
                 configure_argv.appendAssumeCapacity("--cache-poison=poisoned");
             } else if (mem.cutPrefix(u8, arg, "--cache-poison=")) |rest| {
-                // Allow the configurer process to report parse failure.
-                if (stringToEnum(std.Build.Graph.CachePoison, rest)) |poison| {
-                    cache_poison = poison;
-                }
-                configure_argv.appendAssumeCapacity(arg);
+                // We have to report parse failure here otherwise we would
+                // potentially get false positive cache hits for misspellings.
+                cache_poison = stringToEnum(std.Build.Graph.CachePoison, rest) orelse
+                    fatalWithHint("expected --cache-poison=[pure|poisoned|disallowed|ignored]; found: {s}", .{arg});
+                if (cache_poison != .pure) configure_argv.appendAssumeCapacity(arg);
             } else if (mem.eql(u8, arg, "--verbose")) {
                 // Intentionally is added both to make and configure but
                 // does not go into the cache hash.
diff --git a/lib/compiler/configurer.zig b/lib/compiler/configurer.zig
index 9151d0d06bab9540bb2382693553ac06ad8d964e..a4f82bb391b5e35f2ab6cbdb67ec84d2208ae089 100644
--- a/lib/compiler/configurer.zig
+++ b/lib/compiler/configurer.zig
@@ -113,8 +113,8 @@ pub fn main(init: process.Init.Minimal) !void {
         } else if (mem.eql(u8, arg, "--verbose")) {
             graph.verbose = true;
         } else if (mem.cutPrefix(u8, arg, "--cache-poison=")) |rest| {
-            graph.cache_poison = std.meta.stringToEnum(std.Build.Graph.CachePoison, rest) orelse
-                fatalWithHint("expected --cache-poison=[pure|poisoned|disallowed|ignored]; found: {s}", .{arg});
+            // Already parsed and validated by Maker.
+            graph.cache_poison = std.meta.stringToEnum(std.Build.Graph.CachePoison, rest).?;
         } else if (mem.eql(u8, arg, "--search-prefix")) {
             try graph.search_prefixes.append(arena, nextArgOrFatal(args, &arg_i));
         } else {