[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 1"""
 date="2019-09-16T17:27:12Z"
 content="""
The documentation seems to clearly document the current behavior:

* `--json-error-messages`

  Messages that would normally be output to standard error are included in
  the json instead.

And changing the behavior could break something that relies on the current
behavior.

This was considered when the interface was designed, and there were
numerous good reasons to choose the current behavior. 
[[See thread|todo/include_msg_with_possible_reason_why_command___40__e.g._add__41___failed_into_--json_output]].

(Another reason not mentioned there is, it's simply not possible to trap
every possible error message that git-annex could output in any circumstance.
If there's a segfault or a memory error, or libc crashes, or the program fails
to link. So any program parsing stderr for json would somehow have to deal
with this non-json that could be mixed up with it, which seems very hard.)
"""]]
