Ralph Orchestrator is a framework that repeatedly runs AI-agent tasks until they finish or reach an iteration limit. Developers use it to coordinate autonomous coding work through command-line, web-dashboard, and MCP-server interfaces, with state managed per workspace. The catalogue entries provide agent skills, agents, instructions, and plugins for operating Ralph.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestrator. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestrator/main/.claude/skills/test-driven-development/SKILL.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestratorWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestrator/test-driven-development)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestrator/test-driven-development"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestrator/test-driven-development/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestrator/test-driven-development"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestrator/test-driven-development.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector pass
What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00041 | $0.01078 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00016 | $0.00431 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00008 | $0.00216 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00108 |
Grade A, and why
test-driven-development scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 137 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Test-Driven Development
Overview
One skill for all TDD workflows. Enforces test-first development using existing repository patterns. Three input modes handle different entry points — specs, task files, or ad-hoc descriptions — but the core cycle is always RED → GREEN → REFACTOR.
Input Modes
Detect the input type and follow the corresponding mode:
Mode A: From Spec (.spec.md)
Use when the input references a .spec.md file with Given/When/Then acceptance criteria.
- Locate and parse the spec file — extract all Given/When/Then triples
- Generate one test stub per criterion with
todo!()bodies:/// Spec: <spec-file> — Criterion #<N> /// Given <given text> /// When <when text> /// Then <then text> #[test] fn <spec_name>_criterion_<N>_<slug>() { todo!("Implement: <then text>"); } - Verify stubs compile but fail:
cargo test --no-run -p <crate> - Proceed to the TDD Cycle to make stubs pass
Programmatic support: ralph_core::preflight::{extract_acceptance_criteria, extract_criteria_from_file, extract_all_criteria} can parse criteria from spec files.
Mode B: From Task (.code-task.md)
Use when the input references a .code-task.md file or a specific implementation task.
- Read the task and identify acceptance criteria or requirements
- Discover patterns (see Pattern Discovery)
- Design test scenarios covering normal operation, edge cases, and error conditions
- Write failing tests for all requirements before any implementation
- Proceed to the TDD Cycle
Mode C: From Description
Use for ad-hoc tasks without a spec or task file.
- Clarify requirements from the description
- Discover patterns (see Pattern Discovery)
- Write failing tests targeting the described behavior
- Proceed to the TDD Cycle
Pattern Discovery
Before writing tests, discover existing conventions:
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 1mo ago First seen · 137 lines · 41 tokens per session scan A 8c41256017cb
test-driven-development is a skill published in the GitHub repository mikeyobrien/ralph-orchestrator (3,186 stars, last pushed 9d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 41 tokens to every session and 1,078 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
Other skills, from other repositories
test-generation
Use when the user asks for tests, mentions TDD, or when new code has been written and needs test coverage.
tdd-patterns
Guide test-driven development through the mandatory Red-Green-Refactor cycle: a test is RED only when it fails for the intended reason, its expected value has a stated source (spec, reference implementation, hand computation, fixture, or standard — never the implementation's own output), and its input discriminates…
tdd
Test-driven development workflow with philosophy guide - plan → write tests → implement → validate.
implement_task
Implementation agent that executes a single task and creates handoff on completion.
tdd-migration-pipeline
Orchestrator-only workflow for migrating/rewriting codebases with full TDD and agent delegation.
bats-testing-patterns
Master Bash Automated Testing System (Bats) for comprehensive shell script testing. Use when writing tests for shell scripts, CI/CD pipelines, or requiring test-driven development of shell utilities.