Set up and configure Geoffrey Huntley's original Ralph Wiggum autonomous coding loop in any directory with proper structure, prompts, and backpressure.
<essential_principles>
Ralph is Geoffrey Huntley's autonomous AI coding methodology that uses iterative loops with task selection, execution, and validation. In its purest form, it's a Bash loop:
while :; do cat PROMPT.md | claude ; done
The loop feeds a prompt file to Claude, the agent completes one task, updates the implementation plan, commits changes, then exits. The loop restarts immediately with fresh context.
The Ralph Wiggum Technique is deterministically bad in an undeterministic world. Ralph solves context accumulation by starting each iteration with fresh context—the core insight behind Geoffrey's approach.
Your Role: Ralph does all the work, including deciding which planned work to implement next and how to implement it. Your job is to engineer the environment.
Backpressure: Create backpressure via tests, typechecks, lints, builds that reject invalid/unacceptable work.
Observation: Watch, especially early on. Prompts evolve through observed failure patterns.
Context Efficiency: With ~176K usable tokens from 200K window, allocating 40-60% to "smart zone" means tight tasks with one task per loop achieves maximum context utilization.
File I/O as State: The plan file persists between isolated loop executions, serving as deterministic shared state—no sophisticated orchestration needed.
Remote Backup: The loop automatically creates a private GitHub repo and pushes after each commit. This protects against accidental data loss from autonomous operations. Requires gh CLI authenticated. Disable with RALPH_BACKUP=false.
Safety Rules: PROMPT_build.md includes critical safety rules prohibiting dangerous operations like rm -rf on project directories. Tests must run in isolated temp directories.
</essential_principles>
Wait for response before proceeding. </intake>
After reading the workflow, follow it exactly. </routing>
<reference_index>
All in references/:
Core Concepts: ralph-fundamentals.md - Three phases, two prompts, one loop Structure: project-structure.md - Required files and directory layout Prompts: prompt-design.md - Planning vs building mode instructions Backpressure: validation-strategy.md - Tests, lints, builds as steering Best Practices: operational-learnings.md - AGENTS.md guidance and evolution </reference_index>
<workflows_index>
| Workflow | Purpose |
|---|---|
| setup-new-loop.md | Initialize Ralph structure in a directory |
| understand-ralph.md | Learn Ralph concepts and philosophy |
| customize-loop.md | Modify prompts or loop configuration |
| troubleshoot-loop.md | Debug loop issues and improve performance |
| </workflows_index> |
<success_criteria> Skill is successful when: