Interview And Create Plan

Interview and Create Plan

A strong loop depends on a strong plan. The Ralph RLM loop spends real time and money per attempt, and every worker inherits PLAN.md as authority over chat history. This skill produces that plan: a bullet-proof, easily-followed PLAN.md the loop can run against — created with the user, not guessed.

The output is an authored PLAN.md in the active plan directory (run opencode-ralph-rlm plan-path to get the exact location — it is .ralph-rlm/plans/<active>/PLAN.md in the named-plan layout, or the repo root in legacy mode). Once it exists (and no longer contains the bootstrap placeholder), start_loop skips re-bootstrapping and launches attempt 1 directly against it.

Do not rush to write. The interview and the design discussion are the point. Reach an agreed goal and an agreed shape before writing anything.

Process

1. Understand

Make sure you understand what is going on and what the user actually wants.

• Explore the repo to understand the current state of the codebase, if you haven't already.
• Use the project's domain glossary / vocabulary if present, and keep using it throughout.
• Interview the user relentlessly about the plan or design. The goal is to stress-test the idea before any code is written.

Interview tactics

• Challenge previous uses of terms. When the user uses a term that conflicts with the existing language, call it out immediately. "Your glossary defines 'cancellation' as X, but you seem to mean Y — which is it?"
• Sharpen fuzzy language. When the user uses a vague or overloaded term, propose a precise canonical one. "You're saying 'account' — do you mean the Customer or the User? Those are different things."
• Discuss concrete scenarios. When domain relationships come up, stress-test them with specific scenarios. Invent edge cases that force the user to be precise about the boundaries between concepts.
• Cross-reference with code. When the user states how something works, check whether the code agrees. If you find a contradiction, surface it: "Your code cancels entire Orders, but you just said partial cancellation is possible — which is right?"
• Discuss the domain itself — the fundamental meanings of words; the types / primitives relevant to the plan; their interactions, invariants, and implications.
• Surface and state assumptions. Make implicit assumptions explicit and say them back to the user for confirmation — about the domain, how the existing code behaves, data shapes, external systems, and what "done" means. An unstated assumption is a silent risk; when the user nods past something, name the assumption you're both making and ask if it holds. Note which ones you're confident about versus guessing.
• Ask about success criteria. What does success look like? What is the ultimate goal? How will we know it's done? (This becomes the Definition of Done — and should align with the loop's verify.command.)

2. Sketch

Sketch the seams at which you will test the feature.

• Prefer existing seams to new ones. Use the highest seam possible.
• If new seams are needed, propose them at the highest point you can.
• The fewer seams across the codebase, the better — the ideal number is one.

Present possible solutions to the user for review and guidance — especially around interaction, success, invariants, specific important technical decisions, and API-design taste.

Make sure you can clearly state the goals and the proposed solutions, and that the user agrees with you on them.

Present the general shape — solutions, milestones, decisions — so the user understands and agrees.

Do NOT include specific file paths or code snippets. They go stale quickly and the loop will re-discover them. Describe shape and intent, not line numbers.

3. Plan

After exploration and discussion, write the plan.

• Lead with the high-level goals and the domain information.
• Follow with a step-by-step plan: milestones, open questions, success criteria, invariants, resources, decisions/quotes from the user, blockers, and important notes/details.
• It should be bullet-proof and easy to follow / implement.

Write the plan to the path the loop reads PLAN.md from. Do not assume the repo root — with the named-plan layout it lives under .ralph-rlm/plans/<active>/PLAN.md. Get the exact path by running:

opencode-ralph-rlm plan-path

Write your PLAN.md to that path. Keep the headings the loop expects — at minimum ## Goal, ## Definition of Done, and ## Milestones — and add ## Assumptions, ## Open Questions, ## Invariants, ## Decisions, and ## Notes as needed.

State the assumptions the plan rests on explicitly in ## Assumptions — both confirmed and unconfirmed, so a fresh worker (which has no chat history) inherits them. For any assumption that is load-bearing and not yet verified (e.g. "the API returns X", "this function has no side effects", "the table is already indexed"), add an early milestone to test/validate it first — a cheap probe beats discovering a wrong assumption after several attempts. An unconfirmed assumption that everything depends on is the single biggest risk to the loop.

4. Verify command (the loop's stop condition)

verify.command in ralph.json is the single thing that tells the loop it's done — it runs after every attempt and exit 0 = success. The plan is only as good as this command, so develop it deliberately with the user:

• It must actually test the goal — not just exit 0, a no-op, or a build that passes regardless of the feature. Tie it to the Definition of Done.
• It must be deterministic and reasonably fast (it runs every attempt).
• Crucially, it should fail right now, before the work is done — run it and confirm a red baseline. A command that already passes means the loop would "succeed" immediately and do nothing.

Set it in ralph.json (e.g. "verify": { "command": ["npm","test"], "cwd": "." } — use ["bash","-c","…"] to chain steps), then run it once to confirm it fails for the right reason. Sharpen until it genuinely captures "done."

5. Review

Review the plan with the user: details, specifics, order, success criteria.

Loop until they are satisfied. Treat disagreement as a signal the interview wasn't finished — go back and sharpen.

6. Write final plan

Write the final, agreed PLAN.md (to the opencode-ralph-rlm plan-path location).

• Confirm it no longer contains the bootstrap placeholder text.
• Confirm the Definition of Done is consistent with ralph.json's verify.command — that command is the loop's single source of truth for "done."
• Tell the user the plan is ready: switch to the ralph-rlm/supervisor model and say "go" (or "start the loop"). The supervisor will detect the authored plan and start attempt 1 without overwriting it.

Handoff to the loop

RLM_INSTRUCTIONS.md (worker playbooks) is created by the loop's bootstrap and is separate from PLAN.md. Steer what to build in PLAN.md; steer how workers operate in RLM_INSTRUCTIONS.md.