ralph-init

$ralph-init turns a brief feature description or interactive interview into a machine-readable Product Requirements Document that $ralph can use as its definition of done. It writes the PRD, initialises a progress ledger, and leaves the session ready for ralph to pick up immediately.

When to use

• You are starting a new feature or project and want execution grounded in testable acceptance criteria
• You prefer to iterate on requirements before committing to implementation
• Your description is vague enough that you want structured requirements gathering before coding starts
• You want $ralph to have an explicit, checkable goal rather than a free-form prompt
• A previous ralph session ended without a PRD and you want to formalise it retroactively

How to invoke

Natural language triggers: "ralph init", "create PRD", "init ralph", "write requirements".

Explicit slash: $ralph-init

codex
> ralph-init "multi-tenant auth service with RBAC and JWT refresh tokens"

codex
> $ralph-init build me a CLI habit tracker with streak counting

What happens

$ralph-init first decides whether the supplied description is specific enough to plan directly or broad enough to warrant an interactive interview. For broad requests it asks one focused question at a time, gathers codebase facts via an explore agent before asking the user about them, and stops interviewing once requirements are clear. It then writes a structured PRD to .omx/plans/prd-{slug}.md covering problem statement, goals and non-goals, testable acceptance criteria, technical constraints, and phased implementation steps. A progress ledger is initialised at .omx/state/{scope}/ralph-progress.json so ralph can track which criteria have been satisfied. Finally the skill prints the next command so you can launch ralph against the PRD immediately.

Outputs

• .omx/plans/prd-{slug}.md — canonical PRD with acceptance criteria that ralph uses as its completion target
• .omx/state/{scope}/ralph-progress.json — progress ledger initialised with all criteria in pending state
• Console summary of the PRD and the exact $ralph command to start execution

Related skills

• $ralph — persistent execution loop that consumes the PRD
• $ralplan — consensus planning alternative that adds Architect and Critic review passes
• $plan — strategic planning with optional interview workflow