jazz1x galmuri:ralphi — quality-loop discipline
Etymology — Ralph Wiggum (The Simpsons): persistent retry until it works. The
-isuffix marks the inspection family.
The lean discipline-gate version. Bounds token spend per cycle and forbids philosophy regressions from sneaking in between cycles. If you need the full file-type-aware inspection skill (criteria-prd / criteria-skill / criteria-script / criteria-code + Necessity Check), use harnish:ralphi.
If invoked bare (no cycle goal), ask: "What is this cycle's narrow goal? e.g. migrate 3 callers off legacy adapter, remove 5 dead exports — name something verifiable in one cycle."
Cycle phases (budget pattern)
| # | Phase | Budget | What runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Setup | ≤ 500 tokens | State the cycle goal in one sentence; list affected files via rg -l (not rg); confirm baseline branch + SHA. No file reads. |
| 2 | Worker Dispatch | ≤ 4 parallel sub-agents, each ≤ 2000 tokens out | Each worker emits {file, change, 3-line summary} — no full-file contents in worker output. |
| 3 | Verifier | ≤ 1000 tokens | One verifier sub-agent re-reads ONLY changed lines via rg -A 3 -B 3 'pattern' <file>; never full files. Apply the Necessity Check (below) per diff hunk. |
| 4 | Philosophy Sweep | ≤ 200 tokens | rg sweep across the new diff for ROP / version-name violations (below). Halt if any hit. |
| 5 | Commit | n/a | One commit per cycle. Never batch multiple cycles into a single commit. |
| 6 | Handoff | ≤ 300 tokens | 5-line summary: what changed, what verified, next cycle's narrow goal. Then advance counter or pause. |
If any phase exceeds its budget, write tmp/ralphi-state-<n>.json (cycle counter, goal, pending files, last verifier output) and pause. Next invocation resumes from that state.
Necessity Check (Socratic 4 questions)
Apply to each diff hunk in the Verifier phase. Lifted from the original harnish:ralphi — the only inspection method that gates on purpose before correctness.
- Why is this here? — (purpose)
- What is it composed of? — (composition, scaffold for Q1/Q4)
- What is it really, stripped of framing? — (truth, scaffold for Q1/Q4)
- What happens if it's removed? — (necessity)
Verdict. Q1 and Q4 are the only gates. Q2 and Q3 are scaffolding to reach honest answers. Items failing Q1 or Q4 → [warning] unjustified existence (kept only by convention / inheritance / authority).
Fix discipline. Subtraction is the default. For [critical/warning], minimal additive patches are allowed (null check, missing import, type fix, error guard). Do NOT introduce new abstractions, modules, or features. If a fix would require new abstraction/module/feature → tag [unfixed] structural change required and hand off to the user.
Philosophy auto-check (between cycles)
Run between cycles, before advancing the counter. Halt the loop and surface to the user on any hit.
# ROP — defensive timeouts / silent catches added by this cycle
git diff HEAD~1 | rg -n 'withTimeout|timeout:\s*\d+|catch\s*\([^)]*\)\s*\{[^}]*//' \
&& echo "VIOLATION: possible ROP breach in last cycle"
# SSOT — hardcoded version-specific field names
git diff HEAD~1 | rg -n 'v\d+\.\w+|schema_v\d' \
&& echo "VIOLATION: possible hardcoded version"
Baseline note: HEAD~1 assumes the previous cycle already committed. If running against a feature branch with multiple cycles, prefer git diff $(git merge-base HEAD main)..HEAD for the full branch range.
Halt conditions
- Philosophy sweep hit → halt, surface, wait for user judgement
- Worker / verifier exceeds its phase budget → write state, pause
- Necessity Check tags
[unfixed] structural change required→ halt the autonomous loop, hand off to user - Two consecutive cycles fail the verifier on the same hunk → halt (convergence failure)
What this skill does NOT do
- ✗ Type detection + criteria-file matching (that's
harnish:ralphi) - ✗ Run tests by itself — assumes the caller's loop drives the runner
- ✗ Auto-fix philosophy violations — surfaces them for user judgement
- ✗ Replace
galmuri:polish(completion-claim gate) orgalmuri:self-audit(single-session audit)