I am a very weak C programmer, but one thing I find myself doing a fair bit is wrapping the intermediate data from sequences of operations like this into a sing

I am a very weak C programmer, but one thing I find myself doing a fair bit is wrapping the intermediate data from sequences of operations like this into a single structure representing the whole task or unit of work or whatever. That structure then has a single 'valid' and/or 'error' field that each step checks to see if it should actually proceed, and if so, it will fill its field in the structure, and the next step will pick up from there. That way you get to write something like: typedef struct cookie_batch { bool valid; bool baked; unsigned short ingredient_count; char **ingredients; } cookie_batch; . . . void bake(cookie_batch *batch) { if(!batch->valid) return; batch->baked = true; } . . . cookie_batch batch = { .valid = true }; add_ingredients(&batch); bake(&batch); serve(&batch); cleanup(&batch); So you don't need any complex error handling in client code.