Baseline

Baseline monitoring is the practice of establishing what normal external network calls your CI/CD pipelines typically make, and then monitoring for deviations that might indicate a security breach.

At its core, it helps answer the question: “Is this job making expected and safe outbound network calls?”

Baseline Status Categories

Each monitored resource, such as a job or repository, is evaluated for the predictability of its network activity. This evaluation helps uncover anomalies that could signal security issues.

Each resource can be in one of the following baseline states:

• Creating – The system is still collecting data to determine the resource’s baseline behavior.

• Stable – The resource’s network activity is predictable and consistent. A resource is considered stable once it has completed 40 runs without baseline changes.

• Unstable – The resource’s network activity is erratic and prone to triggering frequent alerts. If the baseline has changed within the last 20 runs, the resource is classified as unstable.

Baseline Coverage at StepSecurity

StepSecurity applies baseline monitoring to four distinct resource types within your CI/CD environment:

Jobs

The Jobs tab provides detailed insights into individual pipeline jobs and their external network destinations. You can:

• View each job’s Baseline Status (Stable, Unstable, Creating)

• See the Sample Size that indicates how many runs were used to calculate the baseline. A minimum of 40 runs is required

• Track Baseline Changes to know when and why the baseline last changed

• Access the underlying Pipeline File, and jump directly to Pipeline Runs or Log Samples for investigation

Network Insights per Job

For each destination contacted by a job, you can view:

• The domain/IP

• Port used (e.g., 443)

• Whether the destination is allowed

• First seen / Last contacted timestamps

• Total number of calls (if available)

• Links to pipeline runs making those calls

Repositories

The Repositories tab aggregates baseline data across all jobs and pipelines within a specific repository. It offers the same insights as the Jobs tab, but from a repository-wide perspective. This helps identify broader behavioral patterns and anomalies.

Projects

The Projects tab aggregates baseline data across a specific project.

Azure DevOps Organization

This view aggregates baseline data across all projects in your Azure DevOps organization. It enables organization-wide monitoring to detect systemic threats or changes.

You can:

• View all external destinations contacted by any project across the organization

• See project counts for each destination

• Detect organization-wide issues, such as unexpected domain access or behavioral shifts