FEATURE: jq Process Exit and Diagnostics

Field	Value
Version	20260822 V1
Description	Separates compile failures, runtime failures, successful completion, and diagnostics.
Depends On	FEATURE-EXEC-001.md
Provides	compile exit 3, runtime exit 5, success exit 0, stderr diagnostics
Consumes	./jq -c '<program>'

Intent

Implement the process contract required by the conformance harness. Invalid jq syntax exits 3; a compiled program that raises at runtime exits 5; successful execution exits 0. Diagnostics go to standard error, while values emitted before a runtime failure remain on standard output.

Programmatic Acceptance

=== AC compile-exit-code ===
Intent: A syntactically invalid jq program returns the compile-failure status.

import os import subprocess

result = subprocess.run( [f"{os.getcwd()}/jq", "-c", "{"], input="null\n", capture_output=True, text=True, ) assert result.returncode == 3 === END AC compile-exit-code ===

=== AC runtime-exit-code ===
Intent: A compiled jq program that raises returns the runtime-failure status.

import os import subprocess

result = subprocess.run( [f"{os.getcwd()}/jq", "-c", "error"], input="null\n", capture_output=True, text=True, ) assert result.returncode == 5 === END AC runtime-exit-code ===

=== AC partial-runtime-output ===
Intent: Values emitted before a runtime error remain available on stdout.

import os import subprocess

result = subprocess.run( [f"{os.getcwd()}/jq", "-c", "1, error"], input="null\n", capture_output=True, text=True, ) assert result.returncode == 5 assert result.stdout.splitlines()[:1] == ["1"] === END AC partial-runtime-output ===

User Acceptance

None.

Guardrails

Never collapse compile and runtime failures into one status.
Diagnostics must not be written to standard output.
Preserve output produced before a runtime failure.