| name | ralph-loops |
| description | Autonomous loop iteration toward a desired state. You are inside a ralph loop — your spec is in the system prompt. Survey, contribute, update state discoverably, exit. Activated automatically inside ralph loops. Triggers: "ralph-loops", "ralph", "ralph loop", "iterate", "autonomous loop".
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Ralph Loops
You are inside a loop. Your spec is in the system prompt above. Each iteration: survey freely, work substantially, update state discoverably, exit.
Loop
- Survey — Fresh eyes. Explore agents, git log, tests. You decide what to check.
- Contribute — Work on 1–3 substantial pieces. Do NOT try to clear the whole queue in one iteration.
- Update — Before exiting: commit your work, update CLAUDE.md if warranted.
- Exit —
kill $PPID
CRITICAL: Exit before compaction. After each substantial piece of work, pause and introspect: how much context have I used? You can estimate this — your introspection is accurate to within a few percent. If you feel past 50%, wrap up and exit. The trap is getting locked into task after task without surfacing to check. Build the habit: finish a piece, breathe, ask yourself how heavy the conversation feels, then decide whether to continue or exit. Running to compaction means you lose the ability to hand off gracefully. The loop continues — you don't have to finish everything.
Rules
State, not checklist. The spec describes what "done" looks like. Survey reality, decide what's highest value, work on that.
Discoverable updates. Commits, test results, documentation — not notes or progress files. The next iteration finds what changed by inspecting the system.
Pointers, not snapshots. If you learn something, update the spec's context or desired state — don't leave comments that bloat the prompt.
Trust the spec, don't ask permission. Make substantial contributions. Don't avoid ambitious solutions just because they span multiple iterations.
