baseline

Baseline

Use this skill to secure one trustworthy comparator and then get out of the way. The target is one accepted baseline line, not an endless reproduction diary.

Match signals

Use baseline when:

• no credible baseline exists yet
• the current baseline is unverified or stale
• the user already has a baseline package that should be attached or imported
• a local code path or local service should be verified as the comparator
• a reproduction failed earlier and now needs repair
• the quest resumed and the baseline trust state is unclear

Do not use baseline when:

• a verified active baseline already exists and the next move is obviously idea, experiment, write, or finalize
• the baseline gate was already explicitly waived for the current route

One-sentence summary

Secure the lightest trustworthy comparator, make the comparison contract explicit, then confirm, waive, or block the baseline and stop.

Control workflow

1. Choose the current acceptance target and the lightest route that can satisfy it. Prefer attach, import, or verify-local-existing before full reproduction.
2. Make the comparator identity and core metric contract explicit. Record task, dataset, split, evaluation path, required metric ids, metric directions, source identity, and known deviations.
3. Collect only the evidence needed to establish comparability. Do not widen into broad codebase audit or heavy reruns unless the lighter route cannot be trusted.
4. Verify before acceptance. Check that outputs are real, metrics trace to real evidence, and the intended dataset/split and metric definitions match the contract. Explicitly verify the comparator and metric contract before treating the baseline gate as open.
5. Close the gate explicitly. Call artifact.confirm_baseline(...), call artifact.waive_baseline(...), or record an explicit blocker and next route. When an already accepted baseline needs a deliberate second-pass refresh after verified code, variant, or canonical metric changes, prefer artifact.overwrite_baseline(...) over pretending the update is just a first confirmation.