The original Ralph Wiggum loop
The canonical Ralph Wiggum loop by Geoffrey Huntley: a bash while-loop that feeds Claude Code one fresh-context iteration at a time, using the filesystem and git as memory. Run it only in a sandboxed environment with permissions configured — never with permission checks disabled.
Implementation note
When to use: long-horizon autonomous builds where a single session's context would degrade — you have a spec and a plan and want the agent to grind through it iteration by iteration, possibly overnight. This is the pattern everything else in the Ralph family descends from. How it works: a bash while-loop pipes PROMPT.md into claude -p forever; the prompt tells each run to pick ONE task from the plan, implement it, test it, commit, and exit. Every iteration starts with fresh context, and the filesystem plus git history serve as the only memory between runs. Safety: the while-loop is infinite by construction — there is no built-in stop condition, so supervise it or add your own iteration cap and exit checks. Run it only in a sandboxed environment with permissions properly configured, and never with permission checks disabled; an unattended agent with full permissions is the entire risk surface here.
More automation loops
Run workflows with dynamic sub-agents
Split a task into packets, run sub-agents in parallel, synthesize results, and verify completion.
Run agent turns until goal met
Agent executes repeated turns toward a condition, with a lightweight evaluator checking progress after each turn until the goal is reached.
Run agent until goal met
Queue agent turns with goal context until your objective is achieved, treating the goal as untrusted data.