Ralph Ideate: The Business Idea Machine

ralph-ideate is an autonomous AI agent loop that ideates, extends, researches, scrutinizes, and repeats. It is the ralph loop for business ideas.

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Why Automate Ideation?

Most business 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 real pain points, scrutinizing viability, and deciding what survives. Each iteration builds on the last. You steer the direction; the loop does the legwork.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.12+
• Claude Code, the AI coding agent that runs the skills
• jq, for JSON parsing within bash

Installation

uv tool install ralph-ideate

ralph-ideate init

This installs the skill files into .claude/skills/ so Claude Code can discover them.

Getting Started

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.

1. Create a brainstorming domain

/ralph-ideate.create B2B services that agentic AI can fully automate end-to-end

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>

2. Explore ideas

/ralph-ideate.explore @ideate/<your_idea_folder>

Starts the Ralph Ideate Loop. It generates candidates, researches pain points, evaluates viability, and moves ideas to verified/ or discarded/.

3. Refine a domain description

/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?).

Advanced Usage

Explore options

/ralph-ideate.explore @ideate/<your_idea_folder> "Focus on B2B pain points" --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.

Refine with inline edits

/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.

How It Works

Each iteration reads the domain state fresh and decides which phase to execute:

1. Ideate - Generate and capture new candidate ideas
2. Research - Validate pain points with real-world evidence
3. Scrutinize - Critically evaluate viability and differentiation
4. 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

Features

• 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 user complaints, not assumptions
• Multi-pass refinement: Each iteration deepens understanding rather than forcing premature convergence

Troubleshooting

Skill not appearing in Claude Code

1. Check the skill file exists: .claude/skills/ralph-ideate.create/SKILL.md
2. Verify the frontmatter is valid YAML
3. Restart Claude Code

"command not found: ralph-ideate"

Ensure uv tools are on your PATH:

uv tool install ralph-ideate
ralph-ideate init

Acknowledgments

Ralph Ideate is inspired by Ralph Loop and Spec Kit. Read more about the motivation in the idea machine blog post.