From 0dfeca8a50fd705ee22ddeb800080d72c93318ec Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: thePR0M3TH3AN <53631862+PR0M3TH3AN@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2026 14:19:38 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] fix: a bare seedpass-js printed help and then reported a
 bogus error

exitOverride() makes commander throw for everything it would otherwise exit
on -- displaying help and its own usage errors included. The handler only
recognised two of its codes, so running `seedpass-js` with no arguments
printed the help and followed it with `error: (outputHelp)`, and unknown
commands had their message printed twice.

Any commander.* code is now commander's business: honour its exit code and
let it own the message. SeedPass's own errors still print as before.

Found by running the command.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 js/packages/cli/src/main.ts      | 15 +++++++++++----
 js/packages/cli/test/cli.test.ts | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/js/packages/cli/src/main.ts b/js/packages/cli/src/main.ts
index 2d5bb6b6..8074366d 100644
--- a/js/packages/cli/src/main.ts
+++ b/js/packages/cli/src/main.ts
@@ -10,12 +10,19 @@ program.version(version, "-v, --version", "print the seedpass-js version");
 try {
   await program.parseAsync(process.argv);
 } catch (e) {
-  // commander's exitOverride throws for --help/--version too; those carry
-  // exitCode 0 and must not be reported as errors.
   const err = e as { exitCode?: number; code?: string; message?: string };
-  if (err.code === "commander.helpDisplayed" || err.code === "commander.version") {
-    process.exit(0);
+
+  // exitOverride() makes commander throw for everything it would otherwise
+  // exit on — including displaying help or the version, and its own usage
+  // errors, which it has already written to stderr. Re-reporting those as
+  // "error: ..." is wrong twice over: a bare `seedpass-js` printed the help
+  // and then claimed to have failed with "(outputHelp)". Honour commander's
+  // exit code, but let it own the message.
+  if (typeof err.code === "string" && err.code.startsWith("commander.")) {
+    process.exit(typeof err.exitCode === "number" ? err.exitCode : 0);
   }
+
+  // Anything else is ours, and the message is the useful part.
   process.stderr.write(`error: ${err.message ?? String(e)}\n`);
   process.exit(typeof err.exitCode === "number" && err.exitCode !== 0 ? err.exitCode : 1);
 }
diff --git a/js/packages/cli/test/cli.test.ts b/js/packages/cli/test/cli.test.ts
index a529ac2c..fbbfff9f 100644
--- a/js/packages/cli/test/cli.test.ts
+++ b/js/packages/cli/test/cli.test.ts
@@ -434,6 +434,27 @@ describe("document import/export", () => {
   });
 });
 
+describe("exit behaviour", () => {
+  it("does not report help output as an error", async () => {
+    // exitOverride() makes commander throw when it prints help, so a bare
+    // invocation printed the help and then claimed to have failed with
+    // "(outputHelp)".
+    const out: string[] = [];
+    const err: string[] = [];
+    const io: ProgramIo = { out: (l) => out.push(l), err: (l) => err.push(l) };
+    let thrown: { code?: string; exitCode?: number } | undefined;
+    try {
+      await buildProgram(io).parseAsync(["node", "seedpass-js"]);
+    } catch (e) {
+      thrown = e as { code?: string; exitCode?: number };
+    }
+    // commander signals help with its own code; main.ts must treat any
+    // commander.* code as commander's business, not as a SeedPass error.
+    expect(thrown?.code).toMatch(/^commander\./);
+    expect(err.join("\n")).not.toContain("outputHelp");
+  });
+});
+
 describe("error messages", () => {
   it("explains a corrupt or foreign vault file instead of leaking a codec error", async () => {
     const dir = await mkdtemp(join(tmpdir(), "seedpass-corrupt-"));