content/code-security/codeql-cli/using-the-advanced-functionality-of-the-codeql-cli/exit-codes.md

---
title: Exit codes
intro: 'Exit codes signify the status of a command after the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql_cli %} runs it.'
product: '{% data reusables.gated-features.codeql %}'
versions:
  fpt: '*'
  ghes: '*'
  ghec: '*'
topics:
  - Code Security
  - Code scanning
  - CodeQL
redirect_from:
  - /code-security/codeql-cli/exit-codes
  - /code-security/codeql-cli/codeql-cli-reference/exit-codes
---

## About exit codes

The {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql_cli %} reports the status of each command it runs as an exit code.
This exit code provides information for subsequent commands or for other tools that rely on the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql_cli %}.

## 0

Success, normal termination.

## 1

The command successfully determined that the answer to your question is "no".

This exit code is only used by a few commands, such as [AUTOTITLE](/code-security/codeql-cli/codeql-cli-manual/test-run), [AUTOTITLE](/code-security/codeql-cli/codeql-cli-manual/dataset-check), [AUTOTITLE](/code-security/codeql-cli/codeql-cli-manual/query-format),and [AUTOTITLE](/code-security/codeql-cli/codeql-cli-manual/resolve-extractor).
For more details, see the documentation for those commands.

## 2

Something went wrong.

The CLI writes a human-readable error message to stderr.
This includes cases where an extractor fails with an internal error, because the `codeql` driver can’t distinguish between internal and user-facing errors in extractor behavior.

## 3

The launcher was unable to find the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %} installation directory.

In this case, the launcher can’t start the Java code for the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql_cli %} at all. This should only happen when something is severely wrong with the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %} installation.

## 32

The extractor didn’t find any code to analyze when running [AUTOTITLE](/code-security/codeql-cli/codeql-cli-manual/database-create) or [AUTOTITLE](/code-security/codeql-cli/codeql-cli-manual/database-finalize).

## 33

One or more query evaluations timed out.

It’s possible that some queries that were evaluated in parallel didn’t time out. The results for those queries are produced as usual.

## 98

Evaluation was explicitly canceled.

## 99

The {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql_cli %} ran out of memory.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that all the machine’s physical RAM has been used.
If you don’t use the `--ram` option to set a limit explicitly, the JVM decides on a default limit at startup.

## 100

A fatal internal error occurred.

This should be considered a bug. The CLI usually writes an abbreviated error description to stderr.
If you can reproduce the bug, it’s helpful to use `--logdir` and send the log files to {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom %} in a bug report.

## Other

In the case of really severe problems within the JVM that runs `codeql`, it might return a nonzero exit code of its own choosing.
This should only happen if something is severely wrong with the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %} installation, or if there is a memory issue with the host system running the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %} process. For example, Unix systems may return Exit Code 137 to indicate that the kernel has killed a process that {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %} has started. One way to troubleshoot this is to modify your `–ram=` flag for the `codeql database analyze` step and re-run your workflow.