Add a --fail flag to hard fail a la curl

otelcli/config.go

@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@ func DefaultConfig() Config {
 		EventTime:              "now",
 		CfgFile:                "",
 		Verbose:                false,
+		Fail:                   false,
 	}
 }
 
@@ -78,6 +79,7 @@ type Config struct {
 
 	CfgFile string `json:"config_file"`
 	Verbose bool   `json:"verbose"`
+	Fail    bool   `json:"fail"`
 }
 
 // UnmarshalJSON makes sure that any Config loaded from JSON has its default

otelcli/diagnostics.go

@@ -28,7 +28,12 @@ type Diagnostics struct {
 // hack: ignores the Diagnostics assigned to it and writes to the global
 func (Diagnostics) Handle(err error) {
 	diagnostics.OtelError = err.Error() // write to the global
-	softLog("OpenTelemetry error: %s", err)
+
+	if config.Fail {
+		softFail("OpenTelemetry error: %s", err)
+	} else {
+		softLog("OpenTelemetry error: %s", err)
+	}
 }
 
 // ToMap returns the Diagnostics struct as a string map for testing.

otelcli/helpers.go

@@ -188,11 +188,17 @@ func softLog(format string, a ...interface{}) {
 	log.Printf(format, a...)
 }
 
-// softFail only calls through to log if otel-cli was run with the --verbose
-// flag, then immediately exits with status 0.
+// softFail calls through to softLog (which logs only if otel-cli was run with the --verbose
+// flag), then immediately exits - with status 0 by default, or 1 if --fail was
+// set (a la `curl --fail`)
 func softFail(format string, a ...interface{}) {
 	softLog(format, a...)
-	os.Exit(0)
+
+	if !config.Fail {
+		os.Exit(0)
+	} else {
+		os.Exit(1)
+	}
 }
 
 // flattenStringMap takes a string map and returns it flattened into a string with

otelcli/root.go

@@ -43,6 +43,8 @@ func addCommonParams(cmd *cobra.Command) {
 	cmd.Flags().StringVar(&config.Timeout, "timeout", defaults.Timeout, "timeout for otel-cli operations, all timeouts in otel-cli use this value")
 	// --verbose tells otel-cli to actually log errors to stderr instead of failing silently
 	cmd.Flags().BoolVar(&config.Verbose, "verbose", defaults.Verbose, "print errors on failure instead of always being silent")
+	// --fail causes a non-zero exit status on error
+	cmd.Flags().BoolVar(&config.Fail, "fail", defaults.Fail, "on failure, exit with a non-zero status")
 
 	var common_env_flags = map[string]string{
 		"endpoint": "OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT",