---
type: source
title: "I Was Wrong About Ralph Wiggum"
description: "The real value of the Ralph Wiggum agent loop is not autonomous production coding but rapidly building fully-validated proof of concepts to de-risk your architecture and tech stack before applying a rigorous workflow."
youtube_id: NIv9x7vLeJY
url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIv9x7vLeJY
slug: i-was-wrong-about-ralph-wiggum
published: 2026-01-21
duration: "0:21:23"
recency_rank: 41
raw: "../raw/i-was-wrong-about-ralph-wiggum.md"
tags: [ralph-loop, rapid-prototyping, validation, planning]
created: 2026-07-21
updated: 2026-07-21
---

Cole revisits his earlier dismissal of Ralph Wiggum, Geoffrey Huntley's long-running agent loop, after Huntley pointed out that the Anthropic plugin Cole had fixated on is not the "real" Ralph Wiggum. The real Ralph Wiggum is a philosophy that builds extensive planning in, not a shiny framework. Cole's revised position: with proper structured planning up front, Ralph Wiggum becomes a powerful way to validate your own ideas by having an agent build an entire proof-of-concept application end to end while you keep your hands off the keyboard.

He walks through his customized template, inspired by a Ralph Wiggum guide. The workflow starts with a create-PRD slash command in Claude Code that interviews you via native multiple-choice questions to produce a structured PRD: a feature list with category, description, browser-based validation steps, and a pass/fail flag, mirroring Anthropic's long-running-agent harness. A prompt.md is fed into Claude on every loop, an activity.md acts as long-term memory across loops, and a settings.json sandbox restricts allowed commands so the unattended loop cannot go haywire. Ralph itself is just a bash script running Claude Code in a loop until every feature's "passes" flag is true, the sole exit condition, or until max iterations.

The live demo builds an agent-driven habit tracker (Next.js, Tailwind, Drizzle, shadcn, Clerk auth, Neon Postgres, OpenRouter LLM) with self-validation via the Vercel Agent Browser CLI. Cole seeds a test Clerk account and env credentials the agent can use without reading the .env directly, so it verifies the real end-to-end app instead of mocking. Run overnight (roughly 5 hours, 50 max iterations, only about 7 cents of Haiku 4.5 tokens for the coach), it ships a working, dark-themed app with sign-in, habits, goals, and an AI coach storing conversations in Neon. Cole stresses this is a proof of concept to validate an idea, not a production app you should trust wholesale.

## Concepts covered

- [The Ralph Loop](../concepts/the-ralph-loop.md)
- [Rapid Prototyping](../concepts/rapid-prototyping.md)
- [PRD-First Development](../concepts/prd-first-development.md)
- [Planning with AI](../concepts/planning-with-ai.md)
- [Vibe Coding](../concepts/vibe-coding.md)
- [Context Reset](../concepts/context-reset.md)
- [Memory Systems](../concepts/memory-systems.md)
- [End-to-End Validation](../concepts/end-to-end-validation.md)
- [Agent Graphs](../concepts/agent-graphs.md)
- [Agent Security](../concepts/agent-security.md)
- [Global Rules](../concepts/global-rules.md)
- [Human in the Loop](../concepts/human-in-the-loop.md)

## Entities

- [Cole Medin](../entities/people/cole-medin.md)
- [Claude Code](../entities/tools/claude-code.md)
- [Vercel Agent Browser CLI](../entities/tools/agent-browser.md)
- [Neon](../entities/tools/neon.md)
- [OpenRouter](../entities/tools/openrouter.md)
- [Anthropic](../entities/organizations/anthropic.md)
- [Next.js](../entities/tools/nextjs.md)

## Key moments

- **[0:00:00]** Cole revisits calling Ralph Wiggum the peak of vibe coding; now less sure of that dismissal
- **[0:00:30]** Geoffrey Huntley clarified the Anthropic plugin is not the real Ralph Wiggum, which bakes in extensive planning
- **[0:02:22]** Core takeaway: the real use of Ralph Wiggum / any long-running harness is validation of your own ideas via proof of concepts
- **[0:04:55]** Workflow overview: create-PRD slash command, prompt.md, activity.md, settings.json sandbox
- **[0:07:06]** The Ralph loop is just Claude Code run in a bash loop; exit only when every feature passes
- **[0:10:39]** Live PRD creation via native Claude multiple-choice questions; habit tracker idea with chosen tech stack
- **[0:14:40]** Global CLAUDE.md rules: seed a Clerk test account + env creds without letting the agent read .env
- **[0:16:22]** Kick off ralph.sh with 50 max iterations
- **[0:16:48]** Result the next day: finished app in ~5 hours, all features pass=true
- **[0:20:12]** Cost recap: only ~7 cents of Haiku 4.5 for the coach; good enough to validate a PoC, not a production app

## Transcript

[Raw transcript](../raw/i-was-wrong-about-ralph-wiggum.md)
