ralph-ideate is an autonomous AI agent loop that ideates, extends, researches, scrutinizes, and repeats. It is the ralph loop for brainstorming: business ideas, investment opportunities, prediction market bets, and more.
Most ideas start as hunches and die as forgotten notes. The gap between "that could work" and "here's why it does" is filled with research, critical evaluation, and iteration. Work that's tedious to do systematically by hand.
Ralph Ideate closes that gap. You define a domain to explore, and an AI loop takes over: generating candidates, researching evidence, scrutinizing viability, and deciding what survives. Each iteration builds on the last. You steer the direction; the loop does the legwork.
- Python 3.12+
- Claude Code, the AI coding agent that runs the skills
- jq, for JSON parsing within bash
uv tool install ralph-ideateralph-ideate initDuring init you choose a brainstorming variant:
| Variant | Focus |
|---|---|
| Startup Ideas | Business ideas validated through pain point research |
| Investment | Investment opportunities, prediction market bets (Polymarket/Kalshi), stocks, crypto; validated through data analysis |
This installs variant-specific skill files into .claude/skills/ so Claude Code can discover them.
All commands are Claude Code slash commands. You create a brainstorming domain under ideate/, explore it with the loop, and refine the domain description as you learn more.
/ralph-ideate.create B2B services that agentic AI can fully automate end-to-end
Or for investments:
/ralph-ideate.create Mispriced Polymarket bets on US politics and tech events
Describe what you want to brainstorm about. A domain name and DESCRIPTION.md are generated automatically.
This will setup ideation under ideate/<your_idea_folder>
/ralph-ideate.explore @ideate/<your_idea_folder>
Starts the Ralph Ideate Loop. It generates candidates, researches evidence, evaluates viability, and moves ideas to verified/ or discarded/.
/ralph-ideate.refine @ideate/<your_idea_folder>
Refine or discuss the search domain's DESCRIPTION.md with new insights (e.g. should we focus more on B2B or B2C?).
/ralph-ideate.explore @ideate/<your_idea_folder> "Focus on undervalued opportunities" --max-iterations 20
| Option | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
"custom prompt" |
auto-generated | Focus the brainstorming on a specific angle |
--max-iterations N |
20 |
Auto-stop after N iterations |
You can simply write steering feedback or thoughts while iterations are ongoing and it will be picked up.
/ralph-ideate.refine @ideate/<your_idea_folder> add a constraint about B2B focus
Without arguments, runs a full quality review. With arguments, applies targeted changes.
Each iteration reads the domain state fresh and decides which phase to execute:
- Ideate - Generate and capture new candidate ideas
- Research - Validate ideas with real-world evidence
- Scrutinize - Critically evaluate viability and differentiation
- Decide - Verify, revise, or discard each candidate
Ideas progress through a structured pipeline:
ideate/<domain>/
├── DESCRIPTION.md # Scope, focus, constraints
├── candidates/ # Ideas under evaluation
├── verified/ # Ideas that passed scrutiny
└── discarded/ # Rejected ideas with reasoning
- Systematic exploration: Covers ground broadly rather than pursuing singular solutions
- Interactive steering: Inject thoughts and feedback during active processing to redirect focus
- Evidence-based validation: Ideas must survive research with real data, not assumptions
- Multi-pass refinement: Each iteration deepens understanding rather than forcing premature convergence
- Check the skill file exists:
.claude/skills/ralph-ideate.create/SKILL.md - Verify the frontmatter is valid YAML
- Restart Claude Code
Ensure uv tools are on your PATH:
uv tool install ralph-ideate
ralph-ideate initRalph Ideate is inspired by Ralph Loop and Spec Kit. Read more about the motivation in the idea machine blog post.