diff --git a/dwarf_loader.c b/dwarf_loader.c
index 48e1bf0..fc79770 100644
--- a/dwarf_loader.c
+++ b/dwarf_loader.c
@@ -2791,6 +2791,9 @@ static void *dwarf_cus__process_cu_thread(void *arg)
 			goto out_abort;
 	}
 
+	if (dcus->conf->thread_exit && dcus->conf->thread_exit() != 0)
+		goto out_abort;
+
 	return (void *)DWARF_CB_OK;
 out_abort:
 	return (void *)DWARF_CB_ABORT;
diff --git a/dwarves.h b/dwarves.h
index 30d33fa..c523993 100644
--- a/dwarves.h
+++ b/dwarves.h
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ struct btf;
 struct conf_fprintf;
 
 /** struct conf_load - load configuration
+ * @thread_exit - called at the end of a thread, 1st user: BTF encoder dedup
  * @extra_dbg_info - keep original debugging format extra info
  *		     (e.g. DWARF's decl_{line,file}, id, etc)
  * @fixup_silly_bitfields - Fixup silly things such as "int foo:32;"
@@ -47,6 +48,7 @@ struct conf_fprintf;
 struct conf_load {
 	enum load_steal_kind	(*steal)(struct cu *cu,
 					 struct conf_load *conf);
+	int			(*thread_exit)(void);
 	void			*cookie;
 	char			*format_path;
 	int			nr_jobs;