Exit codes

The service sets the status and the exit code follows it. A script or an agent can act on the code alone.

Exit	Meaning	What to do
0	The check completed and no new finding crossed --fail-on.	Carry on. On an empty change this means nothing was checked; see below.
1	A new finding crossed --fail-on.	Fix the new findings and run the check again.
2	No new finding crossed --fail-on, but some rule did not complete; or the CLI or service failed.	With a report: say which rules did not complete, and why; running again usually gives the same answer. Without one: read the code on stderr. Never treat it as clean.
3	The check was still running when --timeout ran out.	Run the same check again; it picks up the same analysis.
4	The service refused the check, and only a person can clear it.	Do not retry. Tell the person the code and remedy.
130, 143	Interrupted (Ctrl-C, or SIGTERM) before the check answered. No report was printed.	Run the same check again.

Only clean exits 0. A status this CLI does not know exits 2, so a newer service can never pass a check by accident, and stderr names the status. An inconclusive rule never changes the exit code (see Read a report).

Exit 1: findings

New findings that cross --fail-on exit 1 even when some rule did not complete. The findings are the work: fix them in the working tree and run the same check again. The loop ends when the check reports no new findings: exit 0, or exit 2 with a report whose summary.newFindings is 0.

Exit 2: incomplete, or an error

Two different things exit 2:

• A check report with incomplete rules. Stdout has the report; its incomplete list names the rules that did not complete and why. Rerunning usually gives the same answer, so do not loop on it.
• A failure. Stdout is empty in human; in json it is a failed report with the service’s code, message, remedy, and retryable. Stderr starts with slopcop: <code>:. Retry only when retryable is true. Any other error from the CLI itself exits 2 with an empty stdout.

Exit 4: a person must act

A check exits 4 when the service refused it and only a person can clear the refusal: signing in (auth_required, auth_expired), access to the repository (repo_not_indexed, app_not_installed, app_no_repo_access, gitlab_not_connected, no_access), credits (insufficient_credits), what the workspace checks (repository_disabled, repository_add_unconfirmed, workspace_repository_limit_reached, active_repository_limit_reached, owner_required), or something only the browser can do (browser_required). Scripts stop instead of retrying. Error codes lists the remedies.

An empty change

A check whose patch is empty, because the working tree matches the base, still exits by the service’s status, usually 0. The report carries "emptyChange": true and stderr says so. A script that must check committed work passes --base; an agent reads the flag and does the same. See Run a check.