Exit Codes Specification

To ensure reliable integration with CI/CD pipelines, ChangeSharp.Cli uses stable and documented exit codes.

Standard Exit Codes

Code	Name	Description
0	Success	The command completed successfully.
1	Generic Error	An unexpected error occurred (crash, file access denied, etc.).
2	No Changes	(Command: release) No unreleased fragments found and --allow-empty was not specified.
3	Validation Error	Fragments or configuration failed validation.
4	Conflict	A version conflict or state inconsistency was detected.

Command-Specific Behavior

release command

• By default, if no fragments exist in the unreleased directory, the command exits with code 2.
• If --allow-empty is used, it will exit with code 0 even if no fragments are found (silently doing nothing).
• This allows CI/CD workflows to decide whether a "empty" release should fail the build or be ignored.

Transactional Integrity & Resumability

If the release command is interrupted after moving fragments to the releasing/ directory, the next call resumes from that state:

1. Fragments in releasing/ are used instead of unreleased/.
2. If CHANGELOG.md already contains the computed version with matching content, the changelog update is skipped.
3. Version propagation runs before fragment cleanup, so a failure during propagation leaves fragments intact for debugging.

The CLI aims to be safe: a failed release will not silently lose fragments.