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Exit Codes

Code Name Meaning
0 Success The command completed. Not a statement about what it found.
1 Error An application error occurred; see stderr.
2 Usage error Click rejected the command line before depkeeper ran.
130 Interrupted Ctrl+C (128 + SIGINT).

There is no dedicated code for "updates are available". Gate on the payload, not the exit code.

0 — Success

Both commands call sys.exit(0) after their asynchronous pipeline returns normally.

Situation Exit
check: everything up to date 0
check: outdated packages found 0
check: unresolved conflicts found 0
check: some packages unreachable on PyPI 0
update: updates applied 0
update: nothing to update 0
update: user declined at the prompt 0
update: --dry-run 0
update: --packages matched nothing 0
update: a package skipped because its target violates the declared constraints 0

1 — Error

Raised when a DepKeeperError (or any unexpected exception) reaches a command boundary. The message is printed to stderr with an [ERROR] prefix.

Cause Example message
Parse failure Failed to parse requirements.txt: Invalid requirement syntax: ...
Circular include Circular dependency detected: a.txt -> b.txt -> a.txt
Configuration error Unknown configuration keys: check_conflict
Refused hashed update Refusing to update requirement(s) with --hash entries: requests. ...
Unsatisfiable rewrite Cannot update requirement at requirements.txt:3: ...
Write failure Failed to write /path/requirements.txt: ...
File too large / unreadable File too large: 12000000 bytes (max 10485760)
Unexpected exception Unexpected error: <detail> (full traceback at -vv)

2 — Usage error

Produced by Click, before any depkeeper code runs.

Text Only
Usage: depkeeper check [OPTIONS] [FILE]
Try 'depkeeper check --help' for help.

Error: Invalid value for '[FILE]': File 'nosuchfile.txt' does not exist.
Text Only
Error: No such option: --bogus

Also raised for a --config path that does not exist, and for an invalid --format value.

130 — Interrupted

Ctrl+C at any point, including at the confirmation prompt. A warning is written to stderr:

Text Only
[WARNING] Operation cancelled by user

Files are left either fully old or fully new; see Write safety.

Gating on results

check reports through its payload. The correct pattern separates did depkeeper work from what did it find:

Bash
set -euo pipefail

if ! depkeeper check --format json > report.json 2> depkeeper.log; then
  echo "depkeeper failed:" >&2
  cat depkeeper.log >&2
  exit 1
fi

OUTDATED=$(jq '[.[] | select(.status == "outdated")] | length' report.json)
CONFLICTS=$(jq '[.[] | select(.conflicts)] | length' report.json)

if [ "$CONFLICTS" -gt 0 ]; then
  echo "$CONFLICTS package(s) have dependency conflicts" >&2
  exit 1
fi

echo "$OUTDATED package(s) behind"

Explicit dispatch

Bash
depkeeper check
case $? in
  0)   echo "check completed" ;;
  1)   echo "application error"; exit 1 ;;
  2)   echo "usage error"; exit 2 ;;
  130) echo "cancelled"; exit 130 ;;
  *)   echo "unexpected exit code $?"; exit 1 ;;
esac

PowerShell

PowerShell
depkeeper check --format json > report.json
if ($LASTEXITCODE -ne 0) {
    Write-Error "depkeeper failed with code $LASTEXITCODE"
    exit $LASTEXITCODE
}
$report = Get-Content report.json | ConvertFrom-Json
$outdated = @($report | Where-Object { $_.status -eq 'outdated' }).Count
Write-Host "$outdated package(s) behind"

Make

Makefile
.PHONY: deps-check
deps-check:
    @depkeeper check --format json > .deps.json
    @test "$$(jq '[.[] | select(.conflicts)] | length' .deps.json)" -eq 0 \
      || { echo "dependency conflicts present"; exit 1; }

Common mistakes

Mistake Consequence
Treating a 0 exit from check as "no updates". Drift is never detected.
Piping stdout to a parser without checking the exit code. A failed run produces no payload and the parser sees empty input.
Using set -e with depkeeper check \| jq .... The pipeline's exit status is jq's. Use set -o pipefail, or capture to a file first.
Assuming update fails when it declines to update a package. Skips are warnings, not errors; the command still exits 0.