Claude Code Print Mode in CI Pipelines

What Print Mode Does

`claude -p` runs Claude Code in non-interactive print mode. It takes a prompt, runs to completion, and exits with a standard exit code. No approval dialogs, no prompts for user input.

This makes it usable in CI where there is no human to click through permission dialogs.

Basic Usage

claude -p "Review the diff and list any security issues" --max-turns 5

Pipe context in via stdin:

git diff HEAD~1 | claude -p "Review this diff for bugs. Output JSON: {issues: []}"

GitHub Actions Example

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- name: AI Code Review
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  env:
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    ANTHROPIC_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
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  run: |
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    git diff ${{ github.event.pull_request.base.sha }} > diff.txt
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    claude -p "$(cat diff.txt)
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    Review this diff. Return JSON: {\"summary\": \"\", \"issues\": [], \"approved\": true|false}" \
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      --max-turns 3 \
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      --output-format json > review.json
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    cat review.json

Exit Codes

`claude -p` exits `0` on success and non-zero on failure. Use this in pipelines:

claude -p "Run the tests and return exit code 1 if any fail" || exit 1

Limitations

Print mode does not support interactive tool approval. If a tool requires approval (like running shell commands), it will be blocked unless you add `--allowedTools` flags:

claude -p "Check the build" --allowedTools "Bash,Read"

Keep the allowed tool list minimal. In CI, you usually only need `Read` and `Bash` with specific command patterns.