die

# Get the top level PID and setup a trap so that we can call die() within subshells
trap "exit 1" TERM
_self_pid="${$}"
export _self_pid

# Function to print an error message and exit
die() {
  if [ -t 0 ]; then
    printf '\e[31;1m====>%s\e[0m\n' "${0}:(${LINENO}): ${*}" >&2
  else
    printf -- '====>%s\n' "${0}:(${LINENO}): ${*}" >&2
  fi
  # Send a TERM signal to the top level PID, this is trapped and exit 1 is forced
  kill -s TERM "${_self_pid}"
}

Or in a terser form:

# shellcheck disable=SC2059
die() {
  [ -t 0 ] && _diefmt='\e[31;1m====>%s\e[0m\n'
  printf "${_diefmt:-====>%s\n}" "${0}:(${LINENO}): ${*}" >&2
  # Send a TERM signal to the top level PID, this is trapped and exit 1 is forced
  kill -s TERM "${_self_pid}"
}

With datestamps and [ERROR] tags:

die() {
  if [ -t 0 ]; then
    printf '\e[31;1m====>[%s] %s [ERROR]: %s\e[0m\n' "$(date +%s)" "${0}:${LINENO}" "${*}" >&2
  else
    printf -- '====>[%s] %s [ERROR]: %s\n' "$(date +%s)" "${0}:${LINENO}" "${*}" >&2
  fi
  # Send a TERM signal to the top level PID, this is trapped and exit 1 is forced
  kill -s TERM "${_self_pid}"
}

Making public