From 2fef1dad1fc83f98aeaeb4f19a57f0bf097ee896 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bertrand Bonnefoy-Claudet <bertrand@bertrandbc.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2026 19:06:42 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Fix handling of missing command by `dotenv run`

Changes for users:

- (BREAKING) `dotenv run` exits with status code 1 instead of 2 if the command
  provided as argument can't be found.
- `dotenv run` prints a friendly error message instead of a stack trace
  if the command provided as argument can't be found.

Notes:

The existing test case was wrongly testing for that situation: it was
actually observing a "missing env file" error, not a "command not found
error". I thus added an appropriate test case for full coverage.
---
 src/dotenv/cli.py | 15 +++++++++++++--
 tests/test_cli.py | 13 ++++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 25 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/dotenv/cli.py b/src/dotenv/cli.py
index c548aa39..677bda2f 100644
--- a/src/dotenv/cli.py
+++ b/src/dotenv/cli.py
@@ -210,9 +210,20 @@ def run_command(command: List[str], env: Dict[str, str]) -> None:
     if sys.platform == "win32":
         # execvpe on Windows returns control immediately
         # rather than once the command has finished.
-        p = Popen(command, universal_newlines=True, bufsize=0, shell=False, env=cmd_env)
+        try:
+            p = Popen(
+                command, universal_newlines=True, bufsize=0, shell=False, env=cmd_env
+            )
+        except FileNotFoundError:
+            print(f"Command not found: {command[0]}", file=sys.stderr)
+            sys.exit(1)
+
         _, _ = p.communicate()
 
         sys.exit(p.returncode)
     else:
-        os.execvpe(command[0], args=command, env=cmd_env)
+        try:
+            os.execvpe(command[0], args=command, env=cmd_env)
+        except FileNotFoundError:
+            print(f"Command not found: {command[0]}", file=sys.stderr)
+            sys.exit(1)
diff --git a/tests/test_cli.py b/tests/test_cli.py
index 343fdb23..f5de94c4 100644
--- a/tests/test_cli.py
+++ b/tests/test_cli.py
@@ -237,7 +237,18 @@ def test_run_without_cmd(cli):
     assert "Invalid value for '-f'" in result.output
 
 
-def test_run_with_invalid_cmd(cli):
+def test_run_with_invalid_cmd(cli, dotenv_path):
+    result = cli.invoke(dotenv_cli, ["--file", dotenv_path, "run", "i_do_not_exist"])
+
+    assert result.exit_code == 1
+    assert "Command not found: i_do_not_exist" in result.output
+
+
+def test_run_with_env_missing_and_invalid_cmd(cli):
+    """
+    Check that an .env file missing takes precedence over a command not found error.
+    """
+
     result = cli.invoke(dotenv_cli, ["run", "i_do_not_exist"])
 
     assert result.exit_code == 2