Exit Code
/ˈɛɡ.zɪt koʊd/
noun — “the numeric truth a program leaves behind when it dies.”
Exit Code is a small integer returned by a program to its parent process upon termination. It communicates whether the program completed successfully, encountered an error, or experienced a specific failure condition. In information technology, Exit Codes are the silent reporters of program health, letting scripts, shells, and orchestration tools make decisions without reading verbose logs.