> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.flexprice.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Output & scripting

> The machine-facing contract: stdout/stderr separation, stable exit codes, and non-interactive behaviour

The CLI is designed to be scripted against. Three guarantees make that safe: data and commentary never mix, exit codes are stable, and nothing destructive happens without either a confirmation or an explicit `--force`.

## Data goes to stdout, everything else to stderr

Results go to **stdout**. Spinners, footers, receipts, warnings, and empty-state hints go to **stderr**. Redirecting stdout therefore gives you clean data with no commentary in it.

```sh theme={null}
flexprice customers list --output json > customers.json
```

That file contains only JSON. The progress spinner and the `profile: … · region: …` footer went to your terminal, not into the file.

<Note>
  This is why the CLI can print a friendly footer on every table without breaking a single pipeline. If you have ever had to `grep -v` a tool's own status output back out of your data, this is the problem being avoided.
</Note>

Piping works as you would expect:

```sh theme={null}
flexprice customers list --output json | jq -r '.items[].email'
```

## Exit codes

Stable and safe to branch on:

| Code  | Meaning                |
| ----- | ---------------------- |
| `0`   | Success                |
| `1`   | Generic failure        |
| `2`   | Usage error            |
| `3`   | Authentication failure |
| `4`   | Not found              |
| `5`   | Rate limited           |
| `130` | Interrupted (Ctrl-C)   |

```sh theme={null}
if ! flexprice customers retrieve "$ID" --output json > customer.json; then
  case $? in
    3) echo "check FLEXPRICE_API_KEY" ;;
    4) echo "no such customer: $ID" ;;
    5) echo "rate limited, backing off" ;;
  esac
fi
```

## Running non-interactively

The CLI notices whether a human is watching and adapts, without being told:

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card icon="spinner" title="Progress">
    Animation is suppressed when stderr is not a terminal, under `TERM=dumb`, and under `--quiet`.
  </Card>

  <Card icon="palette" title="Colour">
    Disabled when `NO_COLOR` is set, under `TERM=dumb`, and with `--no-color`.
  </Card>

  <Card icon="keyboard" title="Prompts">
    `--no-input` makes any prompt a hard failure that names the flag to pass instead.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

In practice CI logs stay clean without passing any flags at all.

## Destructive commands

`delete`, `void`, `cancel`, `terminate`, `archive`, and `finalize` confirm before acting. In a script, pass `--force`:

```sh theme={null}
flexprice customers delete cust_123 --force
```

<Warning>
  Without `--force`, a non-interactive run **fails rather than proceeding**. The CLI will not destroy something on the grounds that nobody was available to be asked.
</Warning>

Note that `--force` is a per-command flag, so it goes after the resource and action — see [Global flags](/docs/cli/global-flags).

## A worked CI example

```sh theme={null}
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

export FLEXPRICE_API_KEY="$CI_FLEXPRICE_KEY"

flexprice --region us --no-input --quiet \
  customers create --external_id="$TENANT" --email="$EMAIL" \
  --output json > created.json

CUSTOMER_ID=$(jq -r '.id' created.json)
echo "created $CUSTOMER_ID"
```

`--no-input` guarantees the job can never hang on a prompt, `--quiet` keeps the log readable, `set -e` plus stable exit codes means a failure stops the build, and the key comes from the environment so it never appears in the process list.

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card icon="flag" title="Global flags" href="/docs/cli/global-flags">
    Every flag, grouped by what it controls.
  </Card>

  <Card icon="key" title="Authentication" href="/docs/cli/authentication">
    Credential precedence and CI setup.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>