diff --git a/tools/buildman/README b/tools/buildman/README
index cb565b551f..f3a0dc7288 100644
--- a/tools/buildman/README
+++ b/tools/buildman/README
@@ -1114,15 +1114,15 @@ with -E, e.g. the migration warnings:
 When doing builds, Buildman's return code will reflect the overall result:
 
     0 (success)     No errors or warnings found
-    128             Errors found
-    129             Warnings found (only if no -W)
+    100             Errors found
+    101             Warnings found (only if no -W)
 
-You can use -W to tell Buildman to return 0 (success) instead of 129 when
+You can use -W to tell Buildman to return 0 (success) instead of 101 when
 warnings are found. Note that it can be useful to combine -E and -W. This means
-that all compiler warnings will produce failures (code 128) and all other
-warnings will produce success (since 129 is changed to 0).
+that all compiler warnings will produce failures (code 100) and all other
+warnings will produce success (since 101 is changed to 0).
 
-If there are both warnings and errors, errors win, so buildman returns 128.
+If there are both warnings and errors, errors win, so buildman returns 100.
 
 The -y option is provided (for use with -s) to ignore the bountiful device-tree
 warnings. Similarly, -Y tells buildman to ignore the migration warnings.
diff --git a/tools/buildman/control.py b/tools/buildman/control.py
index 07f47a5445..30c030fd16 100644
--- a/tools/buildman/control.py
+++ b/tools/buildman/control.py
@@ -361,7 +361,7 @@ def DoBuildman(options, args, toolchains=None, make_func=None, boards=None,
             fail, warned = builder.BuildBoards(commits, board_selected,
                                 options.keep_outputs, options.verbose)
             if fail:
-                return 128
+                return 100
             elif warned and not options.ignore_warnings:
-                return 129
+                return 101
     return 0
diff --git a/tools/buildman/func_test.py b/tools/buildman/func_test.py
index b9e347ecb0..1fbc6f6b00 100644
--- a/tools/buildman/func_test.py
+++ b/tools/buildman/func_test.py
@@ -454,7 +454,7 @@ class TestFunctional(unittest.TestCase):
         # Only sandbox should succeed, the others don't have toolchains
         self.assertEqual(self._builder.fail,
                          self._total_builds - self._commits)
-        self.assertEqual(ret_code, 128)
+        self.assertEqual(ret_code, 100)
 
         for commit in range(self._commits):
             for board in self._boards.GetList():