diff --git a/.circleci/run_tests.sh b/.circleci/run_tests.sh
index 4202eb5e..48303d70 100644
--- a/.circleci/run_tests.sh
+++ b/.circleci/run_tests.sh
@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@
 set -e
 set -o xtrace
 
+# non-zero exit code if we provide bad configs
+(! ./target/debug/pgcat "fake_configs"  2>/dev/null)
+
 # Start PgCat with a particular log level
 # for inspection.
 function start_pgcat() {
diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 2e20f709..af4826b8 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -159,6 +159,12 @@ dependencies = [
  "termcolor",
 ]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "exitcode"
+version = "1.1.2"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "de853764b47027c2e862a995c34978ffa63c1501f2e15f987ba11bd4f9bba193"
+
 [[package]]
 name = "fnv"
 version = "1.0.7"
@@ -515,6 +521,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "bytes",
  "chrono",
  "env_logger",
+ "exitcode",
  "hmac",
  "hyper",
  "log",
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 37370244..226a20d6 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -33,3 +33,4 @@ tokio-rustls = "0.23"
 rustls-pemfile = "1"
 hyper = { version = "0.14", features = ["full"] }
 phf = { version = "0.10", features = ["macros"] }
+exitcode = "1.1.2"
diff --git a/src/main.rs b/src/main.rs
index 0b2e1d59..db546f24 100644
--- a/src/main.rs
+++ b/src/main.rs
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ extern crate async_trait;
 extern crate bb8;
 extern crate bytes;
 extern crate env_logger;
+extern crate exitcode;
 extern crate log;
 extern crate md5;
 extern crate num_cpus;
@@ -77,7 +78,7 @@ async fn main() {
 
     if !query_router::QueryRouter::setup() {
         error!("Could not setup query router");
-        return;
+        std::process::exit(exitcode::CONFIG);
     }
 
     let args = std::env::args().collect::<Vec<String>>();
@@ -92,7 +93,7 @@ async fn main() {
         Ok(_) => (),
         Err(err) => {
             error!("Config parse error: {:?}", err);
-            return;
+            std::process::exit(exitcode::CONFIG);
         }
     };
 
@@ -107,7 +108,7 @@ async fn main() {
             Ok(addr) => addr,
             Err(err) => {
                 error!("Invalid http address: {}", err);
-                return;
+                std::process::exit(exitcode::CONFIG);
             }
         };
         tokio::task::spawn(async move {
@@ -121,7 +122,7 @@ async fn main() {
         Ok(sock) => sock,
         Err(err) => {
             error!("Listener socket error: {:?}", err);
-            return;
+            std::process::exit(exitcode::CONFIG);
         }
     };
 
@@ -141,7 +142,7 @@ async fn main() {
         Ok(_) => (),
         Err(err) => {
             error!("Pool error: {:?}", err);
-            return;
+            std::process::exit(exitcode::CONFIG);
         }
     };