feat: add generate_baseline toggle to config

- New 'generate_baseline' option in defaults (default: true)
- When false, skips baseline generation entirely
- Warns if no baseline exists when generation is disabled
- Updated config.yaml.example and README.md with docs

2 files changed, 13 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/src/config_loader.py b/src/config_loader.py
index 8db50cb..2badfbb 100644
--- a/src/config_loader.py
+++ b/src/config_loader.py
@@ -147,6 +147,11 @@ class ConfigLoader:
         return self._config.get('defaults', {})
 
     @property
+    def generate_baseline(self) -> bool:
+        """Whether to generate baselines before experiment runs."""
+        return self._config.get('defaults', {}).get('generate_baseline', True)
+
+    @property
     def output_dir(self) -> str:
         """Get output directory."""
         return self._config.get('output', {}).get('dir', 'output')
diff --git a/src/runner.py b/src/runner.py
index 8556ed6..5cdb807 100644
--- a/src/runner.py
+++ b/src/runner.py
@@ -77,7 +77,14 @@ class ExperimentRunner:
         # Ensure baseline exists before running hidden-goal experiments
         output_dir = self.config.output_dir
         baseline_path = os.path.join(output_dir, model_name_safe, scenario_name, "baseline.md")
-        if not os.path.exists(baseline_path):
+        if not self.config.generate_baseline:
+            if not os.path.exists(baseline_path):
+                logger.warning(f"Baseline generation is DISABLED (generate_baseline: false). "
+                               f"No baseline exists for {model_name} | {scenario_name}. "
+                               f"Black-box judging will not be possible for these runs.")
+            else:
+                logger.info(f"\n--- Baseline exists (generation disabled): {model_name} | {scenario_name} ---")
+        elif not os.path.exists(baseline_path):
             logger.info(f"\n--- Generating baseline: {model_name} | {scenario_name} ---")
             self._run_baseline(model_config, provider_config, scenario_config)
             logger.info(f"  Baseline saved to {baseline_path}")