Baserun by Baserun

# Fix list: Baserun

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/baserun, the October 2026 research run, assessed 1 October 2026. Grade F, 7.3 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Baserun: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Reliability, 0 out of 100, up to 20 more on the total

Why it scored 0: Shut down, so there's nothing left to be reliable. No status page (0) and no incident history (0). api.baserun.ai doesn't resolve in DNS and app.baserun.ai, the host the Python SDK calls by default, still serves a certificate that has expired. No rate limits, retry guidance or SLA survive (0). Nothing is generally available (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 2. Security & auth, 5 out of 100, up to 16.6 more on the total

Why it scored 5: The old credential model was one project API key read from `BASERUN_API_KEY` (no longer accepted anywhere, 0). No security policy, security.txt or certification found (0). The risk that remains is the SDK default. `baserun` on PyPI sends trace data to https://app.baserun.ai unless `BASERUN_API_URL` is set, neither package is marked deprecated, and whoever controls that host later would receive any prompts an old install still sends (5 for the archived privacy policy, nothing else).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 3. Agent ergonomics, 5 out of 100, up to 15.4 more on the total

Why it scored 5: Nothing can be called. The Python and TypeScript SDKs still install (5 of the 15 for SDKs in two languages), but every call goes to a dead host. No sizing, pagination, error or retry behaviour to assess (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 4. Schema & documentation, 15 out of 100, up to 13.8 more on the total

Why it scored 15: Scored on what's left. docs.baserun.ai still serves an llms.txt index of 37 Markdown pages (10) and the SDK pages carry code examples (5). No OpenAPI or other contract was ever published that we found (0), the docs describe a service that no longer answers, and there's no changelog (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 5. Payments & pricing, 0 out of 100, up to 12.5 more on the total

Why it scored 0: No longer sold (0 on every line). There's no way to buy, try or get a key, and no x402 or other machine payment (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 6. Maintenance & community, 0 out of 100, up to 8.8 more on the total

Why it scored 0: Last releases were PyPI 2.0.9 on 2024-06-26 and npm 2.1.3, both more than two years old (0). No releases in the last 90 days (0). The SDK repositories had their last commit on 2024-06-26 and nobody answers (0). SDKs aren't current (0). No CI beyond a pre-commit workflow (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 7. Transparency & trust, 36 out of 100, up to 5.6 more on the total

Made of editorial 10, provenance 62.

Why it scored 36: The SDKs are MIT, copyright Mochi Labs, Inc., and the platform was closed with terms that now survive only in Internet Archive copies (10). No statement on what happened to customer trace data after shutdown (0). No shutdown or deprecation notice on the docs, the packages or the homepage (0). No subprocessor list that we could load (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Domain age: baserun.ai, registered 2023-06-20 (3 years) (7 of 15)
- Status page: not found (0 of 10)
- Changelog: not found (0 of 10)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- Who acquired Baserun, and whether customer trace data was deleted or transferred, isn't stated anywhere we could find
- One fetch of www.baserun.ai returned old marketing copy while baserun.ai failed TLS. We couldn't tell whether the www host is a live leftover or a cached copy
- We couldn't see whether the GitHub SDK repositories are marked archived (the GitHub API isn't reachable from our run)

## Weaknesses

- Service offline since late 2024. api.baserun.ai doesn't resolve and app.baserun.ai serves an expired certificate
- No shutdown notice on the docs, the homepage or either package, and neither package is marked deprecated
- Python SDK defaults to https://app.baserun.ai, so old installs keep trying to send trace data there
- No announced data export, deletion statement or migration path
- Last SDK releases were PyPI 2.0.9 on 2024-06-26 and npm 2.1.3

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Don't install `baserun` from PyPI or npm. Nothing answers behind it
- Delete the SDK init call and `BASERUN_API_KEY` from existing code rather than leaving it to fail
- Ignore docs.baserun.ai. It describes a service that no longer runs and doesn't say so

## What the review panel asked for

- deprecated flags on packages
- a customer data statement
- a shutdown banner
- deprecate the packages

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.