Creating and Managing Baselines
Step-by-step guide to creating governance baselines, verifying integrity, comparing drift, and integrating baselines into your architecture review workflow.
Baselines capture the exact architectural state at a governance-approved moment. This guide walks through the complete baseline workflow: creation, review, comparison, and integrity verification.
Step 1: Prepare for the Baseline
Step 2: Create the Baseline
Step 3: Commit and Review the Baseline
Step 4: Monitor Drift
Step 5: Verify Integrity
The integrity hash on each baseline file can be verified at any time. If any field in the baseline has been modified (even the description), the hash will no longer match, indicating potential tampering.
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.
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.