| name | constitution |
| description | Draft a ralph constitution — a markdown spec describing a desired state for autonomous iteration. Study the problem space, shape the spec interactively, then launch the ralph loop. Use for any work where adaptation matters more than a fixed plan: science, refactoring, exploration, creative work. Triggers: "constitution", "constitute", "ralph spec", "set up a ralph", "create a ralph", "write a spec".
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Constitution
A constitution is a design document with trust built in. Like a governmental constitution, it lays out principles and aspirations — not specific laws, not the current state of affairs. It's designed to outlast any single agent or iteration and remain valid as the world changes around it. A good constitution never says "50 files remain" because that's a snapshot that goes stale; it says "check grep -r 'old_pattern'" because that's a principle that stays true until the work is done.
Constitutions don't prescribe steps. They describe what the system looks like when it's right — the desired state, in both senses of the word. Nothing in the constitution should become confusing or unnecessary as the desired state is reached. Whoever works from it surveys reality, reasons about the gap, and decides what's highest value. In a ralph loop, each iteration does this with fresh context.
This matters most in science and exploratory work, where each decision is informed by the result just before it. A plan assumes you know the path; a constitution trusts the agent to find it — with taste, judgment, and fresh eyes each time.
Separation of context: if you craft, you never do the work yourself.
Workflow
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Study — Read relevant files, understand existing patterns. This informs the spec, not implementation. The goal is pointers that iterations will follow.
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Draft — Create a markdown spec file using the template:
cp <base>/assets/spec.md my-spec.md
