diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 41198dc7..ce842983 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
   needed to be quoted. The resulting manifest lacked information about the
   Quarto runtime, which caused difficult-to-understand deployment errors.
   (#1037)
+* Produce an error when Quarto content cannot be inspected. (#1032)
 
 # rsconnect 1.2.0
 
diff --git a/R/appMetadata-quarto.R b/R/appMetadata-quarto.R
index 5e682731..07cccf93 100644
--- a/R/appMetadata-quarto.R
+++ b/R/appMetadata-quarto.R
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+# Called only when the content is known to be Quarto.
 inferQuartoInfo <- function(metadata, appDir, appPrimaryDoc) {
   if (hasQuartoMetadata(metadata)) {
     return(list(
@@ -11,10 +12,6 @@ inferQuartoInfo <- function(metadata, appDir, appPrimaryDoc) {
     appDir = appDir,
     appPrimaryDoc = appPrimaryDoc
   )
-  if (is.null(inspect)) {
-    return(NULL)
-  }
-
   list(
     version = inspect[["quarto"]][["version"]],
     engines = I(inspect[["engines"]])
@@ -37,20 +34,34 @@ quartoInspect <- function(appDir = NULL, appPrimaryDoc = NULL) {
     ))
   }
 
-  paths <- c(appDir, file.path(appDir, appPrimaryDoc))
+  json <- suppressWarnings(
+    system2(
+      quarto, c("inspect", shQuote(appDir)),
+      stdout = TRUE, stderr = TRUE
+    )
+  )
+  status <- attr(json, "status")
+
+  if (!is.null(status) && !is.null(appPrimaryDoc)) {
+    json <- suppressWarnings(
+      system2(
+        quarto, c("inspect", shQuote(file.path(appDir, appPrimaryDoc))),
+        stdout = TRUE, stderr = TRUE
+      )
+    )
+    status <- attr(json, "status")
+  }
 
-  for (path in paths) {
-    args <- c("inspect", shQuote(path.expand(path)))
-    inspect <- tryCatch(
-      {
-        json <- suppressWarnings(system2(quarto, args, stdout = TRUE, stderr = TRUE))
-        parsed <- jsonlite::fromJSON(json)
-        return(parsed)
-      },
-      error = function(e) NULL
+  if (!is.null(status)) {
+    cli::cli_abort(
+      c(
+        "Unable to run `quarto inspect` against your content:",
+        json
+      )
     )
   }
-  return(NULL)
+  parsed <- jsonlite::fromJSON(json)
+  return(parsed)
 }
 
 # inlined from quarto::quarto_path()
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-appMetadata-quarto.R b/tests/testthat/test-appMetadata-quarto.R
index fa13ea5d..ecfa88e7 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-appMetadata-quarto.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-appMetadata-quarto.R
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ test_that("inferQuartoInfo correctly detects info when quarto is provided alone"
   expect_equal(quartoInfo$engines, I(c("knitr")))
 })
 
-test_that("inferQuartoInfo extracts info from metadata", {
+test_that("inferQuartoInfo prefers metadata over quarto inspect", {
   metadata <- fakeQuartoMetadata(version = "99.9.9", engines = c("internal-combustion"))
 
   quartoInfo <- inferQuartoInfo(
@@ -43,30 +43,6 @@ test_that("inferQuartoInfo extracts info from metadata", {
   ))
 })
 
-test_that("inferQuartoInfo prefers using metadata over quarto inspect", {
-  skip_if_no_quarto()
-
-  metadata <- fakeQuartoMetadata(version = "99.9.9", engines = c("internal-combustion"))
-
-  quartoInfo <- inferQuartoInfo(
-    appDir = test_path("quarto-website-r"),
-    appPrimaryDoc = NULL,
-    metadata = metadata
-  )
-  expect_equal(quartoInfo$engines, I(c("internal-combustion")))
-})
-
-test_that("inferQuartoInfo returns NULL for non-quarto content", {
-  skip_if_no_quarto()
-
-  quartoInfo <- inferQuartoInfo(
-    appDir = test_path("shinyapp-simple"),
-    appPrimaryDoc = NULL,
-    metadata = list()
-  )
-  expect_null(quartoInfo)
-})
-
 test_that("quartoInspect requires quarto", {
   local_mocked_bindings(quarto_path = function() NULL)
   expect_snapshot(error = TRUE, {
@@ -74,7 +50,7 @@ test_that("quartoInspect requires quarto", {
   })
 })
 
-test_that("quartoInspect identifies on Quarto projects", {
+test_that("quartoInspect identifies Quarto projects", {
   skip_if_no_quarto()
 
   inspect <- quartoInspect(test_path("quarto-website-r"))
@@ -123,9 +99,42 @@ test_that("quartoInspect processes content with filenames containing spaces", {
   expect_equal(inspect$engines, c("markdown"))
 })
 
-test_that("quartoInspect returns NULL on non-quarto Quarto content", {
+test_that("quartoInspect produces an error when a document cannot be inspected", {
+  skip_if_no_quarto()
+
+  dir <- local_temp_app(list("bad.qmd" = c(
+    "---",
+    "format: unsupported",
+    "---",
+    "this is a document using an unsupported format."
+  )))
+  expect_error(
+    quartoInspect(dir, "bad.qmd"),
+    "Unable to run `quarto inspect` against your content",
+    fixed = TRUE
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("quartoInspect produces an error when a project cannot be inspected", {
   skip_if_no_quarto()
 
-  inspect <- quartoInspect(test_path("shinyapp-simple"))
-  expect_null(inspect)
+  dir <- local_temp_app(
+    list(
+      "_quarto.yml" = c(
+        "project:",
+        "  type: unsupported"
+      ),
+      "bad.qmd" = c(
+        "---",
+        "title: bad",
+        "---",
+        "this is a document using an unsupported format."
+      )
+    )
+  )
+  expect_error(
+    quartoInspect(dir, "bad.qmd"),
+    "Unable to run `quarto inspect` against your content",
+    fixed = TRUE
+  )
 })