alint baseline

On an existing codebase, turning alint on usually surfaces violations nobody will fix in one sitting. alint baseline records them in a file you commit; alint check --baseline then fails only on violations that aren't in it, so the gate blocks new debt from day one while the old debt is paid down.

Examples

Snapshot today's violations (writes .alint-baseline.json):

alint baseline

Gate CI on the delta:

alint check --baseline .alint-baseline.json

After fixing some entries, re-run to prune them:

alint baseline

Re-running alint baseline drops the entries that no longer fail. If the tree has any violation the file doesn't already hold, it writes nothing and exits 2 unless you pass --accept-new, so a refresh can't quietly grandfather fresh violations.

A baseline path that comes from the repository (the baseline: config key or the default .alint-baseline.json) must stay inside the repository, and alint refuses to write through a symlink; either case exits 2. Pass --output to write the file somewhere else on purpose.

Analysis failures are not policy debt and cannot be grandfathered. If any rule could not obtain a verdict, alint baseline writes nothing, reports each failure, and exits 1; --accept-new does not override this refusal.

Reference date for time-dependent rules

alint baseline --as-of YYYY-MM-DD pins the strict UTC date used to evaluate time-dependent findings before they are fingerprinted. The flag overrides ALINT_AS_OF; without either, alint uses the current HEAD commit's committer timestamp. An explicit date removes that HEAD-time lookup, but a rule such as git_blame_age still requires a usable Git repository for tracked-file and blame data.

Reference

Snapshot current violations so later runs fail only on new ones.

Writes them to a baseline file, so a later `alint check --baseline <file>` fails only on NEW
violations. The one-step way to adopt alint as a blocking gate on a legacy repo: `alint baseline`
(commit it), then gate on the delta. The baseline is whole-tree; `--changed` is not accepted.

Usage: alint baseline [OPTIONS] [PATH]

Arguments:
  [PATH]
          Root of the repository to snapshot. Defaults to the current directory

          [default: .]

Options:
      --output <FILE>
          Where to write the baseline. Default: `.alint-baseline.json` at the repo root

      --accept-new
          Allow the regenerated baseline to grandfather violations not already present in the
          existing file. Without it, `alint baseline` refuses to ADD new entries (and prints a `+N /
          -M` summary) so re-running it to prune fixed entries can't silently accept new debt.
          Stale-entry removal never needs it

The global options apply to alint baseline too, where they are relevant.

See also

• Baseline: the full adoption workflow