Ralph Wiggum Loop - January 2026 Snapshot
Snapshot of community thinking about the “Ralph Wiggum” loop (created by Geoffrey Huntley), covering both the original bash technique and the official Claude Code plugin (“Ralph Loop”). This note summarizes public docs, origin posts, and community reports, related approaches as of January 2026. Executive summary Ralph turns a one-shot prompt into an iteration loop that keeps working until a completion signal or iteration cap is reached. The main split is “OG bash loop” (fresh context each run) vs the official plugin (stop hook in a single session). The loop succeeds when “done” is machine-verifiable (tests pass, lint clean, checklist complete). Best fit: deterministic, mechanical tasks (migrations, lint fixes, test-first loops, repo hygiene). Weak fit: architecture or ambiguous goals without hard exit criteria. Guardrails are essential: max iterations, explicit tests, budget awareness, and carefully scoped permissions. Common failure modes: context pollution, hallucinated “done”, permission dead-ends, and cost blow-ups. The ecosystem now includes loop runners, verification plugins, and guardrails that reduce risk in long runs. Verified facts (as of Feb 1, 2026) Official Status: The plugin is published as “Ralph Loop” and is Anthropic Verified. Canonical Syntax: /ralph-loop "..." --max-iterations N --completion-promise "..." Cancel Command: Explicit support for /cancel-ralph. State Preservation: The plugin description claims it preserves file modifications and git history between iterations (“claimed by plugin page”). What Ralph is Mechanism (official plugin) The official plugin registers a stop hook. When Claude tries to exit, the hook checks for a completion promise (a specific string) and an iteration cap. If the promise is not present and the cap is not reached, the plugin re-injects the original prompt and continues within the same session. The codebase on disk is the durable “memory” that carries progress forward. ...