plan-to-ralph

Plan to Ralph

You are generating ralph-o-matic review files through interactive Q&A. This skill produces three files that configure a ralph refinement run:

• RALPH.md — Review instructions (persona, mission, steps, checklist, promise tags)
• docs/reference/focus-areas.md — Review tracking table (single areas with 2 passes, paired areas with 1 pass)
• docs/reference/gaps-identified.md — Issue tracker (open, fixed, won't-fix sections)

After generating these files, the user runs /direct-to-ralph or ralph-o-matic submit to start the review.

Arguments

Parse the following from the user's command:

• CONTEXT (optional): Free-text description of what the review should focus on (e.g., "on the work on the new identity system"). When provided, narrows codebase scan and pre-seeds Q&A answers.
• --reset: Skip backup. Overwrite existing files without creating historical copies.
• --auto: Skip all Q&A and derive answers automatically from spec and design docs. Requires SPEC_PATH argument (path to the feature spec). When --auto is passed, this skill delegates entirely to the auto-ralph-prep skill. Equivalent to invoking /auto-ralph-prep directly.
• SPEC_PATH (required when --auto): Path to the feature spec (e.g., docs/specs/user-auth-spec.md)

Prerequisites

Before starting, verify:

git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree

If this fails, stop and tell the user: "This skill requires a git repository. Initialize one with git init first."

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Auto Mode Gate

If --auto was passed:

Invoke the auto-ralph-prep skill with the same arguments:

• Pass SPEC_PATH as the spec path
• Pass CONTEXT (if provided) as the design glob context
• Pass --slug derived from the spec filename

Do NOT continue with the phases below — auto-ralph-prep handles everything.

If --auto was NOT passed: Continue with Phase 1 below (interactive Q&A flow).

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Phase 1: Backup

Skip this phase if --reset was passed.

Check if any of these files exist:

• RALPH.md
• docs/reference/focus-areas.md
• docs/reference/gaps-identified.md