Ralph

Autonomous SDLC pipeline runner — a Rust CLI daemon that orchestrates parallel Claude Code worker sessions to execute stories around the clock with self-healing capabilities.

Ralph pairs with BMAD-METHOD for planning, shifting delivery from human-in-the-loop to human-on-the-loop.

How It Works

1. BMAD produces sprint plans with sequenced, dependency-mapped stories
2. Ralph daemon ingests the plan, analyzes parallelization opportunities
3. Concurrent Claude Code workers execute stories in isolated git worktrees
4. Three-layer self-healing (retry → restart → diagnose) handles failures automatically
5. Developer monitors progress via terminal dashboard and intervenes only when needed

Architecture

5-crate Cargo workspace:

ralph (CLI binary)
├── ralph-pipeline   — State machine, story scheduling, self-healing
├── ralph-worker     — Process spawning, health monitoring, worktree isolation
├── ralph-config     — TOML config with three-tier precedence
└── ralph-common     — Shared error types, state models, SQLite schema

Key choices: SQLite + WAL for persistence, Unix Domain Socket IPC, tokio async runtime.

CLI

ralph start      # Start daemon, begin processing sprint plan
ralph stop       # Graceful shutdown
ralph status     # Pipeline state, story progress, worker health
ralph watch      # Live terminal dashboard
ralph diagnose   # Diagnostic report for failed stories
ralph retry      # Re-feed corrected stories into pipeline
ralph init       # Initialize ralph on a project

Development Status

Early development — project foundation in progress.

Epic	Scope	Status
1. Project Foundation & Developer Setup	Workspace scaffold, shared types, config system, init command	In Progress (1/5 stories done)
2. Autonomous Story Execution	Daemon lifecycle, IPC, state persistence, pipeline engine, workers	Backlog
3. Pipeline Monitoring & Status Display	Terminal rendering, status commands	Backlog
4. Self-Healing & Error Recovery	Three-layer healing, diagnose/retry commands	Backlog
5. Planning Integration	BMAD submodule integration, artifact handoff	Backlog

Completed

• Story 1-1: Cargo workspace scaffold & CLI entry point

Build

cargo build --workspace
make test-all    # tests + clippy + fmt-check

Requires Rust 2024 edition (stable toolchain, pinned via rust-toolchain.toml).

License

MIT