diff --git a/hive-forge/src/main.rs b/hive-forge/src/main.rs
index 3aad7deb..3f9960f3 100644
--- a/hive-forge/src/main.rs
+++ b/hive-forge/src/main.rs
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ mod verbs;
 
 use anyhow::{Context, Result};
 use clap::{Parser, Subcommand};
+use std::process::ExitCode;
 
 #[derive(Parser)]
 #[command(
@@ -173,7 +174,24 @@ enum Verb {
     CiRerun(verbs::ci_rerun::Args),
 }
 
-fn main() -> Result<()> {
+/// Wrapper over [`run`] that owns how a failure reaches the operator.
+///
+/// `fn main() -> Result<()>` would format the error with anyhow's `Debug`
+/// impl, which prints a bare `Error:` header. `hive-forge` is almost always
+/// invoked from an agent's bash task, where stdout is what gets surfaced
+/// first and stderr is easy to miss — so failures are prefixed with the
+/// binary name to be unmistakably ours, and rendered with `{:#}`
+/// (alternate `Display`), which keeps the full `context` chain inline
+/// rather than dropping it the way plain `Display` would.
+fn main() -> ExitCode {
+    if let Err(e) = run() {
+        eprintln!("hive-forge: FAILED: {e:#}");
+        return ExitCode::FAILURE;
+    }
+    ExitCode::SUCCESS
+}
+
+fn run() -> Result<()> {
     let cli = Cli::parse();
     let client = client::Client::from_env(cli.repo, cli.json, cli.forge)
         .context("initialize forge client")?;