diff --git i/Cargo.lock w/Cargo.lock
index a68cb12d..a177130e 100644
--- i/Cargo.lock
+++ w/Cargo.lock
@@ -179,6 +179,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "bootc-lib",
  "bootc-utils",
  "log",
+ "similar-asserts",
  "tokio",
  "tracing",
 ]
diff --git i/cli/Cargo.toml w/cli/Cargo.toml
index 374e89ab..d62dc966 100644
--- i/cli/Cargo.toml
+++ w/cli/Cargo.toml
@@ -21,5 +21,8 @@ tokio = { workspace = true, features = ["macros"] }
 log = "0.4.21"
 tracing = { workspace = true }
 
+[dev-dependencies]
+similar-asserts = { workspace = true }
+
 [lints]
 workspace = true
diff --git i/cli/src/main.rs w/cli/src/main.rs
index d9429aa3..48feea8f 100644
--- i/cli/src/main.rs
+++ w/cli/src/main.rs
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 //! The main entrypoint for bootc, which just performs global initialization, and then
 //! calls out into the library.
+use std::io::Write;
+
 use anyhow::Result;
 
 /// The code called after we've done process global init and created
@@ -17,6 +19,9 @@ async fn async_main() -> Result<()> {
 /// Perform process global initialization, then create an async runtime
 /// and do the rest of the work there.
 fn run() -> Result<()> {
+    if std::env::var_os("FOO").is_some() {
+        return Err(anyhow::anyhow!("FOO is set").context("Checking env"));
+    }
     // Initialize global state before we've possibly created other threads, etc.
     bootc_lib::cli::global_init()?;
     // We only use the "current thread" runtime because we don't perform
@@ -31,12 +36,34 @@ fn run() -> Result<()> {
     runtime.block_on(async move { async_main().await })
 }
 
+fn print_error(mut w: impl Write, e: anyhow::Error) {
+    // Ignore recursive errors when writing errors
+    let _ = write!(w, "{e:#}\n");
+}
+
 fn main() {
     // In order to print the error in a custom format (with :#) our
     // main simply invokes a run() where all the work is done.
     // This code just captures any errors.
     if let Err(e) = run() {
-        tracing::error!("{:#}", e);
+        print_error(std::io::stderr(), e);
         std::process::exit(1);
     }
 }
+
+#[cfg(test)]
+mod tests {
+    use super::*;
+
+    #[test]
+    fn test_print_error() {
+        use std::io::Cursor;
+
+        let mut buf = Cursor::new(Vec::new());
+        let err = anyhow::anyhow!("test error").context("some context");
+        print_error(&mut buf, err);
+        let output = String::from_utf8(buf.into_inner()).unwrap();
+
+        similar_asserts::assert_eq!(output, "some context: test error\n");
+    }
+}