ChooChoo

Automation scripts and CI/CD pipelines should rely on these exit codes when interpreting results from the choochoo CLI.

Code	Name	Description
0	`SUCCESS`	Command completed successfully.
1	`VALIDATION_ERROR`	Schema validation failed or quality rules were not met. See Error Messages for details.
2	`CONFIG_ERROR`	The `.choochoorc` file is missing or invalid.
3	`NETWORK_ERROR`	Failed to communicate with the remote API or registry.
4	`AUTH_ERROR`	Authentication failed or insufficient permissions. Check your RBAC or SSO configuration.
5	`NOT_FOUND`	The requested artifact or resource does not exist.
10	`APPROVAL_REQUIRED`	The action requires human approval and cannot proceed automatically. The risk score exceeded the auto-approve threshold.
11	`APPROVAL_REJECTED`	The action was rejected by an approver via the approval workflow.
99	`INTERNAL_ERROR`	An unexpected bug in the CLI. Please report this via Contributing.

Usage in CI/CD

In GitHub Actions or GitLab CI, you can use these exit codes to branch your pipeline logic:

choochoo validate --strict
EXIT_CODE=$?

case $EXIT_CODE in
  0)  echo "All validations passed" ;;
  1)  echo "Validation failed — check error messages" ;;
  10) echo "Human approval required — notifying approvers" ;;
  *)  echo "Unexpected exit code: $EXIT_CODE" ;;
esac

The --strict flag treats warnings as errors (exit code 1). You can configure this as the default in your .choochoorc configuration.

Common Scenarios

Exit 1 in CI: Usually means a schema validation failure or file naming convention violation. Consult the Error Messages catalog to diagnose.
Exit 10 in CI: A change involves sensitive fields (e.g., PII compliance tags) and the configured approval policy requires human sign-off. The risk scoring algorithm determines the approval level.
Exit 2 locally: Your .choochoorc may be missing or contain invalid JSON. Run choochoo init to regenerate it — see the Quickstart.