[vicmcorrea]

Problem and fix

bend-lint --help and -h currently load and self-check Bend before printing usage. An unavailable or drifted compiler therefore makes help exit 2 without showing usage.

Retain the parsed startup options and route help through the existing cli() handler before load(). This reuses its strict argument validation and usage text; ordinary commands and library imports still load and check Bend as before.

Blast radius

Two tool-owned files: six added/two removed source lines in tools/bend-lint/src/lint.ts, plus one regression in src/lint.test.ts. Tests remain in the tool's suite, following the #1389 guidance.

No public rule/API change. Normal linting, compiler selection and drift checks retain their behavior. Help-related argument errors still exit 2, now before compiler initialization.

Regression evidence

The added subprocess test supplies a nonexistent compiler, covers both help spellings and explicit --bend, and checks exit 0, usage stdout and empty stderr. It fails against unchanged baseline source with exit 2/no usage, and passes on this branch. An unknown-option control prevents help from bypassing strict parsing.

Additional CLI controls preserve help-looking option values, real -- delimiters, explicit compiler priority, ordinary linting, drift failures and library imports.

Checks

• Complete bend-lint suite: 128 passed, 0 failed, 845 assertions.
• Baseline-sensitive regression and focused CLI controls pass their expected before/after assertions.
• git diff --check passes.
• Tool typecheck reports the same two existing protected bend.ts errors at lines 2040 and 3771; diagnostics are byte-identical to baseline. This is not a clean typecheck.
• Repository gate: 53/54, solely unchanged comp.ts at 64,092/64,000 ttok, also present on main's #1600 check. This PR leaves compiler source and caps untouched.

Validation limits

Local checks used macOS arm64 and Bun 1.3.11 through the README-supported direct invocation. Installed-global-bin, editor integration, real release-download fallback, other operating systems and cluster checks were not exercised. The inherited compiler-cap failure prevents a green repository gate.