diff --git a/.forgejo/workflows/baseline.yml b/.forgejo/workflows/baseline.yml
index 96e193e..d7b4b66 100644
--- a/.forgejo/workflows/baseline.yml
+++ b/.forgejo/workflows/baseline.yml
@@ -131,13 +131,32 @@ jobs:
           mkdir -p /tmp/versions_held
           mv alembic/versions/*.py /tmp/versions_held/ 2>/dev/null || true
           DB_NAME=fc_gen alembic revision --autogenerate -m "baseline" || true
-          # Printed in full rather than uploaded. ci-requirements.md records
-          # that this runner cannot do actions/upload-artifact@v4+, and the
-          # repo dropped the action entirely in 2026-05; the job log is the
-          # retrieval channel that is actually proven here.
-          echo "===== BEGIN CANDIDATE BASELINE ====="
-          cat alembic/versions/*.py
+          # Printed rather than uploaded: ci-requirements.md records that this
+          # runner cannot do actions/upload-artifact@v4+, and the repo dropped
+          # the action entirely in 2026-05, so the job log is the retrieval
+          # channel actually proven here.
+          #
+          # base64, not the raw file. A plain `cat` of the ~33KB candidate was
+          # TRUNCATED MID-LINE by the runner on run 4964 — it stopped inside
+          # `sa.Column('mime', sa.String(length=128)` and carried straight on
+          # to the next traced command, with the step still green. A silent
+          # cut in the middle of a schema definition is the worst possible
+          # failure here, because the truncated text still looks like a
+          # plausible file.
+          #
+          # base64 at a fixed narrow width gives many short lines instead of
+          # few long ones, and — the actual point — a checksum and a line
+          # count that make truncation DETECTABLE rather than invisible.
+          set +x
+          F=$(ls alembic/versions/*.py | head -1)
+          B64=$(base64 -w 120 "$F")
+          echo "===== BEGIN CANDIDATE BASELINE (base64) ====="
+          echo "$B64"
           echo "===== END CANDIDATE BASELINE ====="
+          echo "candidate-sha256: $(sha256sum "$F" | cut -d' ' -f1)"
+          echo "candidate-bytes:  $(wc -c < "$F")"
+          echo "candidate-b64-lines: $(echo "$B64" | wc -l)"
+          set -x
           # Put the tree back exactly as it was; this job never mutates state.
           rm -f alembic/versions/*.py
           mv /tmp/versions_held/*.py alembic/versions/ 2>/dev/null || true