Dismissing a code scanning alert is the appropriate action when the alert is not relevant to the security of the production application. A common reason for dismissal is when the flagged code is part of a test suite, documentation, or another non-production context. In such cases, the alert is considered a false positive or an acceptable risk. By dismissing it with a specific reason (e.g., "Used in tests"), teams can clean up their security backlog and focus on alerts that represent genuine vulnerabilities in their deployable codebase.

A. If you fix the code that triggered the alert, the alert will be closed automatically after the branch is rescanned; you do not need to dismiss it manually.

B. Dismissing an alert hides a potential issue and does not serve as a preventative measure against developers introducing new problems.

D. An alert for a production error indicates a real vulnerability that must be addressed and fixed, not dismissed and ignored.

1. GitHub Docs, "Managing code scanning alerts for your repository." This document explicitly lists valid reasons for dismissing an alert. It states, "You may want to dismiss an alert for a reason such as... The code is only used in tests." This directly supports the correct answer (C). It also explains that fixing an alert results in it being automatically closed, which invalidates option A.

Reference Section: "Dismissing or deleting alerts" -> "Dismissing an alert"

2. GitHub Docs, "About code scanning alerts." This page describes the lifecycle of an alert. It clarifies that when code that caused an alert is fixed, the alert's status changes to "Fixed" and it is closed automatically on the next scan. This reinforces why option A is an incorrect action.

Reference Section: "About the status and details of alerts"