diff --git a/cmd/cue/cmd/common.go b/cmd/cue/cmd/common.go
index 869229d80..933542928 100644
--- a/cmd/cue/cmd/common.go
+++ b/cmd/cue/cmd/common.go
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ import (
 	"cuelang.org/go/cue/parser"
 	"cuelang.org/go/cue/token"
 	"cuelang.org/go/internal"
+	"cuelang.org/go/internal/cuedebug"
 	"cuelang.org/go/internal/encoding"
 	"cuelang.org/go/internal/filetypes"
 )
@@ -57,8 +58,8 @@ func defaultConfig() (*config, error) {
 					parser.FromVersion(version),
 					parser.ParseComments,
 				}
-				// TODO: consolidate all options into a single CUE_DEBUG variable.
-				if os.Getenv("CUE_DEBUG_PARSER_TRACE") != "" {
+				cuedebug.Init()
+				if cuedebug.Flags.ParserTrace {
 					options = append(options, parser.Trace)
 				}
 				return parser.ParseFile(name, src, options...)
diff --git a/cmd/cue/cmd/help.go b/cmd/cue/cmd/help.go
index c6498d831..b9373d59e 100644
--- a/cmd/cue/cmd/help.go
+++ b/cmd/cue/cmd/help.go
@@ -317,6 +317,8 @@ If an environment variable is unset or empty, sensible default setting is used.
 			Force fields in stucts to be sorted lexicographically.
 		toolsflow
 			Print task dependency mermaid graphs in 'cue cmd'.
+		parsertrace
+			Print a trace of parsed CUE productions.
 
 CUE_EXPERIMENT and CUE_DEBUG are comma-separated lists of key-value strings,
 where the value is a boolean "true" or "1" if omitted. For example:
diff --git a/cmd/cue/cmd/testdata/script/parser_trace.txtar b/cmd/cue/cmd/testdata/script/parser_trace.txtar
index 13b659802..8f320d3ea 100644
--- a/cmd/cue/cmd/testdata/script/parser_trace.txtar
+++ b/cmd/cue/cmd/testdata/script/parser_trace.txtar
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-env CUE_DEBUG_PARSER_TRACE=1
+env CUE_DEBUG=parsertrace=1
 
 exec cue vet -c=false schema.cue
 cmp stdout parser-trace.stdout
diff --git a/internal/cuedebug/cuedebug.go b/internal/cuedebug/cuedebug.go
index f52add976..a71f575b8 100644
--- a/internal/cuedebug/cuedebug.go
+++ b/internal/cuedebug/cuedebug.go
@@ -47,6 +47,9 @@ type Config struct {
 
 	// ToolsFlow causes [cuelang.org/go/tools/flow] to print a task dependency mermaid graph.
 	ToolsFlow bool
+
+	// ParserTrace causes [cuelang.org/go/cue/parser] to print a trace of parsed productions.
+	ParserTrace bool
 }
 
 // Init initializes Flags. Note: this isn't named "init" because we