Step-By-Step Guide to Get Ralph Working and Shipping Code
A tutorial by Ryan Carson. Featured in the OTF curated resource library.
What Is Ralph?
Ralph is an autonomous AI coding agent designed to handle routine development tasks without human supervision. Unlike interactive tools like Cursor or Claude Code where you're in the loop for every decision, Ralph operates independently — you assign a task, and it produces a pull request.
Ralph excels at well-defined tasks: bug fixes with clear reproduction steps, test generation for untested code, documentation updates, and dependency upgrades. It's not designed for creative or ambiguous work — it's a reliable workhorse for the mundane tasks that eat engineering time.
Think of Ralph as a junior developer who works 24/7, never complains about repetitive tasks, and always submits a PR for review.
Setup and Installation
Get Ralph running in your repository in 15 minutes.
Install the Ralph GitHub App
Install Ralph from the GitHub Marketplace. Authorize it to access your repository. Ralph needs read/write access to code and the ability to create pull requests.
Configure the ralph.yml file
Create a `.ralph.yml` file in your repository root. Define your project's conventions, testing commands, and any constraints (e.g., 'never modify database migrations').
Label your first task
Create a GitHub issue with clear instructions and add the 'ralph' label. Ralph picks up labeled issues automatically and begins working.
Review the pull request
Ralph creates a PR with the implementation, test results, and a detailed description explaining its approach. Review it like any other PR.
Your First Autonomous Task
For your first Ralph task, choose something simple and well-defined:
Good first tasks:
- 'Add unit tests for the utility functions in src/lib/utils.ts'
- 'Fix the typo in the error message on line 42 of LoginPage.tsx'
- 'Update the README to reflect the new API endpoints'
Bad first tasks:
- 'Redesign the dashboard' (too subjective)
- 'Fix the performance issue' (too vague)
- 'Add authentication' (too complex)
The key: clear acceptance criteria. If you can describe exactly what the PR should contain, Ralph can produce it. If the task requires judgment calls or creative decisions, keep it human.
Configuration and Customization
Define Test Commands
In ralph.yml, specify how to run tests: `test_command: npm test`. Ralph runs tests after every change and won't submit a PR with failing tests.
Set File Boundaries
Restrict which files Ralph can modify: `allowed_paths: ['src/**', 'tests/**']`. This prevents accidental changes to configuration files, migrations, or CI pipelines.
Custom Conventions
Include coding conventions in ralph.yml: naming patterns, import styles, error handling approaches. Ralph follows these when generating code.
Review Assignment
Configure automatic reviewer assignment so the right team member reviews each Ralph PR. Route by file path: frontend changes → frontend team, API changes → backend team.
