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Scenario S5: Single-Build Audit, No Baseline

You want abicheck to run — surfacing internal-noise checks, cross-source findings, a public-surface report — but there is nothing to compare against yet: no prior release, no accepted-main history, nothing. This is ADR-047 §8's S5, and it is a real, distinct check kind, not a degraded form of comparison — advisory by default, since there is no baseline-drift verdict to gate CI on in the first place.

The bypass, not a not_found failure

Set baseline-channel: none. check-target detects this and skips resolve-baseline entirely, routing to a plain scan (no --against) instead of compare — it never even attempts a baseline lookup, so this is not the same as an unresolved required: true channel hitting not_found (a hard failure). A .abicheck.yml checks: entry with channel: none defaults its own gate_mode to advisory, matching this semantic:

targets:
  libfoo:
    binary_pattern: "lib/libfoo.so*"
    checks:
      - channel: none
        depth: source   # or binary/headers/build -- an audit at any depth

- uses: abicheck/abicheck/actions/check-target@c9e135a3233b6d45e9571533f71293fde458a469  # not yet in a tagged release; pin main or newer
  with:
    name: libfoo
    target-kind: library   # required -- app-consumer/plugin-contract have
                            # no scan-mode equivalent to --used-by/--required-symbols
    baseline-channel: none
    requested-depth: source

See the check-target reference for the full bypass mechanics, and GitHub Action: Source Scans § Single-release audit for the equivalent one-step mode: scan (no against:) wiring.

When to move past this scenario

  • You now have something to compare against → any other scenario; baseline-channel: none is a starting point, not a permanent choice for a project that will eventually publish a release or track main.
  • target-kind: app-consumer/plugin-contract — not supported with baseline-channel: none: scan has no --used-by/--required-symbols equivalent, so an app-consumer/plugin-contract audit with no baseline has no scope to check against. Use kind: library for a no-baseline audit.

See also