Agent skill · ma08
Ralph
Ralph Wiggum methodology for autonomous agentic development. Use when setting up a new Ralph task, preparing specs, or troubleshooting Ralph loops.
What it needs
About 8k tokens when loaded.
What this skill does
Ralph Wiggum Methodology Ralph is a technique for autonomous agentic software development using LLMs in a deterministic loop. Named after the naive character from The Simpsons, Ralph represents giving an AI minimal planning ability and maximum execution autonomy. Critical: Separation of Concerns The orchestrator session prepares the loop. The loop agent does the work. When a plan involves a Ralph loop, do NOT implement the code changes yourself. Your job is to create the Ralph infrastructure files (PROMPT.md, AGENT.md, fixplan.md, specs/, run-ralph.sh) and hand off to the user to run the loop. The loop agent — spawned fresh each iteration by run-ralph.sh — reads PROMPT.md, picks the next incomplete task from fixplan.md, implements it, validates, commits, and loops. Orchestrator creates: Ralph files, specs, fixplan.md (tasks in TODO) Orchestrator does NOT: implement code, write tests, mark tasks complete, commit Loop agent does: implement code, run tests, update fixplan.md, commit per task Core Philosophy 1. Blame Yourself, Not Ralph: If Ralph does something wrong, look at your prompts, specs, and instructions. "Tune Ralph like a guitar." 2. One Thing Per Loop: Ralph does ONE task per iteration. If things go off the rails, narrow to one item. 3. Trust Eventual Consistency: Every problem created by AI can be resolved through a different series of prompts. 4. LLMs Are Mirrors: The quality of Ralph's output reflects the quality of your specs and prompts. When to Use Ralph Greenfield projects (new codebases) - expect 90% completion Well-specified features with clear requirements GPU/remote machine delegation Tasks where you can provide working reference code When NOT to use Ralph: Complex existing codebases with lots of implicit context Tasks requiring deep domain knowledge you can't encode in specs --- The Stack (4 Essential Files) Ralph allocates these files as persistent context every loop: 1. PROMPT.md - The Loop Engine The current task/instruction for Ralph. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills ma08/ralph