Ralph for Beginners(blog.engora.com)
blog.engora.com
Ralph for Beginners
https://blog.engora.com/2026/04/ralph-for-beginners.html
2 comments
I had trouble getting a Ralph loop going, so I've written some notes in the hope they'll help other people get started faster.
Do you know if anyone has looked at what kinds of task lists are better handled by Ralph versus giving the LLM the list and asking it to implement everything in one session/prompt? In other words, how do you recognize when Ralph is the right approach?
I ask because I've tinkered with some Ralph loops and found I can achieve similar results by handing Claude (Opus 4.6, 1M context) a PLAN.md file with a long checklist of tasks and telling it to sequentially complete them.
I don't seem to have the problems that Ralph solves. But like any tool, it would be good to have a mental model for when to reach for Ralph in the future should a need arise.
I ask because I've tinkered with some Ralph loops and found I can achieve similar results by handing Claude (Opus 4.6, 1M context) a PLAN.md file with a long checklist of tasks and telling it to sequentially complete them.
I don't seem to have the problems that Ralph solves. But like any tool, it would be good to have a mental model for when to reach for Ralph in the future should a need arise.