Exit Codes

PromptLint uses exit codes to communicate results to CI/CD pipelines.

Code Reference

Code	Meaning
0	Clean — no findings at or above --fail-level
1	WARN-level findings detected
2	CRITICAL-level findings detected

--fail-level Mapping

--fail-level	Exit 0 when	Exit 1 when	Exit 2 when
critical (default)	No CRITICAL findings	—	CRITICAL findings present
warn	No WARN or CRITICAL findings	WARN findings present	CRITICAL findings present
info	No findings at all	Any finding present	CRITICAL findings present
none	Always	Never	Never

Examples

# Default: fail only on CRITICAL
promptlint --file prompt.txt
echo $?  # 0 (clean), 1 (warn only), or 2 (critical)

# Strict: fail on any warning
promptlint --file prompt.txt --fail-level warn
echo $?  # 0 (clean), 1 (warn+), or 2 (critical)

# Informational: fail on any finding
promptlint --file prompt.txt --fail-level info
echo $?  # 0 (clean) or 1 (any finding)

# Never fail (report only)
promptlint --file prompt.txt --fail-level none
echo $?  # always 0

In Shell Scripts

#!/bin/bash
set -e

promptlint --file prompt.txt --fail-level warn
# Script stops here if exit code != 0
echo "Prompt passed all checks"

In Makefiles

lint-prompts:
	promptlint --file "prompts/**/*.txt" --fail-level warn

.PHONY: lint-prompts

In GitHub Actions

- name: Lint prompts
  run: promptlint --file "prompts/**/*.txt" --fail-level warn
  # Step fails if exit code != 0

Or use the dedicated action which maps exit codes to annotations:

- uses: AryaanSheth/promptlint@v1
  with:
    path: prompts/
    fail-level: warn