Exit codes

--json and --text pick how a command prints. This page is about how a script reads what comes back.

Streams

In text mode data goes to stdout and failures go to stderr, so a pipeline keeps its data clean. In JSON mode the whole document goes to stdout, failures included, so a caller parses one stream:

{ "error": { "kind": "usage", "message": "..." } }

A usage mistake and a 404 read alike, which is what lets a caller learn the format once.

The response, unrendered

--full prints the API response exactly as it arrived:

minima entities get <entityId> --full

Lists are summarised in both text and JSON mode, so --full is the escape hatch when you want the document untouched. It overrides the output mode rather than combining with it — the same flag means the same thing whether the request worked or not. For readable and complete, use --json --full and a formatter.

Exit codes

push --apply reports its failures inside a normal document, so a run where every write failed would read as success to anything checking only that the command finished. Each failure carries the status that caused it, and the run exits the way a single request with that status would — an expired key is 4 whether it broke one write or forty. Mixed causes exit 5.

Colour and progress

Colour is on when stdout is a terminal, and progress is drawn in place only when the line can safely be redrawn. Piping either command to a file gets plain, single-pass output with no spinner frames in it.

An agent harness backed by a PTY looks like a person to a terminal check, so set MINIMA_PLAIN=1 if you get a transcript of every spinner frame instead of one report.