I COULD override die, I guess, and generate something that way. But my laziness doesn't extend that far.

I would probably be that lazy:

my $dbh=DBI->connect(..., {RaiseError => 1});
# later:
if (eval {
    # use $dbh
    # perhaps the entire API handling
    1;
}) {
    # report success to the API
} else {
    my $error=$@;
    # Post-Process $error if needed
    # report $error to the API
}
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Alexander