There are situations where a repository already contains checked‑in secrets, but you want to ensure no **new** secrets are introduced. A baseline file lets you document the known findings so future scans only report anything that is not already in that list.
The easiest way to create a baseline is to run a normal scan with the `--manage-baseline` flag (typically at a low confidence level to capture all potential matches):
```bash
kingfisher scan /path/to/code \
--confidence low \
--manage-baseline \
--baseline-file ./baseline-file.yml
```
This generates a YAML file named `baseline-file.yml` in the current directory. The file tracks each finding under an `ExactFindings` section:
`fingerprint` reuses Kingfisher's 64-bit *finding fingerprint* algorithm with offsets set to zero. It hashes the secret value together with the normalized filepath, so moving a secret around does not create a new entry.
Fingerprints in the baseline are written as decimal `u64` values — identical to the fingerprint shown in scan output (JSON, JSONL, pretty, SARIF), so you can copy a fingerprint directly from a report into this file. For backward compatibility the baseline also accepts the legacy 16-character zero-padded hex form (e.g. `056876f00ffd0622`) and explicit `0x`-prefixed hex, so baselines produced by older releases continue to work unchanged.
Running another scan with `--manage-baseline` rewrites the file so it only contains findings that still exist in the repository. Use the same YAML file with the `--baseline-file` option on future scans to hide all recorded findings:
If you intentionally add a new secret that should be ignored later, rerun the scan with both `--manage-baseline` and `--baseline-file` to refresh the baseline. New matches are appended and entries for secrets that no longer appear (for example, because files were removed or excluded) are pruned:
If you want to know which files are being skipped, enable verbose debugging (-v) when scanning, which will report any files being skipped by the baseline file (or via `--exclude`):
