Baselines and Architectural Governance
File-based baselines provide defence-grade reproducibility with SHA-256 integrity hashing. Unlike Git tags, baselines survive squash merges and rebases, go through PR review, and work in air-gapped environments.
A baseline is a named, immutable reference point that captures the exact state of your architecture at a governance-approved moment. NeoArc stores baselines as JSON files in a .neoarc-baselines/ directory within your workspace, making them version-controlled artefacts that go through the same review process as any other architectural resource.
What a Baseline Contains
Why Not Git Tags?
Git tags are the traditional way to mark release points, but they have significant limitations for architecture governance:
Creating a Baseline
Governance Workflow
NeoArc wraps Git with architecture-first concepts: checkpoints instead of commits, tracks instead of branches, baselines instead of tags. Semantic diff, conflict resolution, drift analytics, and shelving provide a complete governance workflow.
Monitor how far your architecture has drifted from a governance-approved baseline. Visual gauges, hotspot detection, change frequency heatmaps, and a chronological change feed give architects full visibility into architectural evolution.