ralph-project-ops

name	ralph-project-ops
description	Shared patterns for modifying an existing Ralph project environment. Load when adding tasks, pivoting project direction, or revising objectives.

Ralph Project Operations Skill

Load this skill when modifying an existing Ralph environment (add-task, pivot, revise).

Reading Existing State

Before any modification, read all three files:

1. prd.json — note highest task ID, status counts (pending/in-progress/complete/cancelled)
2. AGENTS.md — understand current stack, standards, and commands
3. progress.log — understand execution history and what has already shipped

Task ID Assignment

When adding new tasks, continue from the highest existing task ID:

• Find the maximum numeric suffix across all existing task IDs
• New tasks start at max + 1
• Example: if highest is task-007, new tasks are task-008, task-009, ...

prd.json Task Statuses

Valid statuses and their semantics:

Status	Meaning
pending	Not started, eligible for Ralph execution
in-progress	Currently being worked on
complete	Done, verified, committed
cancelled	No longer needed — kept for traceability

Never delete tasks from prd.json. Mark them cancelled instead. Deletion breaks the correlation between progress.log entries and task IDs, and destroys git history traceability.

Impact Analysis for Changes

When objectives change, categorize affected existing tasks:

• pending tasks — may be kept, cancelled, or have acceptance criteria revised
• in-progress tasks — warn the user before modifying; Ralph may be mid-execution
• complete tasks — if their output is invalidated by the change, create a new corrective task (e.g., "Revise user model per new authentication requirements") rather than un-completing them
• cancelled tasks — can be re-activated by setting back to pending if relevant again

Progress Log Format for Project Operations

Append to progress.log for every project-level change:

[YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS] [PROJECT-OP] add-task: Added task-XXX "Title" (priority: high, deps: [task-003])
[YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS] [PROJECT-OP] pivot: Switched from REST to GraphQL — 4 tasks cancelled, 6 tasks added
[YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS] [PROJECT-OP] revise: Updated AGENTS.md security section; revised acceptance criteria for task-005

AGENTS.md Edit Rules

When modifying AGENTS.md:

• Edit the relevant section in place — do not regenerate the whole file
• Preserve all sections that were not mentioned by the user
• If a new section is needed, append it rather than inserting it mid-file
• All commands must remain real and runnable — never revert to placeholders