Add Ralph as a context provider for AI-assisted development

[bBlazewavE]

Summary

Ralph is Anthropic's tool for providing rich codebase context to AI coding assistants. Shellsmith currently has no integration with Ralph, but adding it would improve the quality of AI interactions (Claude Code, Pi, orchestrator) by giving them structured project context.

Why

Shellsmith already integrates multiple AI tools (Claude Code, Pi, orchestrator pipeline), but none of them have a structured way to understand the full codebase context. Ralph can:

• Index the codebase and provide semantic context to AI assistants
• Improve AI accuracy by giving models a better understanding of project structure, dependencies, and conventions
• Reduce token waste — instead of manually feeding files to the AI, Ralph provides relevant context automatically

Proposed Integration

1. Add Ralph to the Nix devShell

Add Ralph as a package in flake.nix so it's available in the dev environment.

2. Add a just recipe for Ralph setup

# justfile
ralph-init:
    ralph index .

3. Configure Ralph context for existing AI tools

• Claude Code: Point Claude Code's context settings to Ralph's index
• Orchestrator: Feed Ralph context into the plan-and-execute pipeline so the planner model has full project awareness
• MCP integration: Consider adding Ralph as an MCP server so AI tools can query project context on demand

4. Add a just recipe for refreshing context

ralph-refresh:
    ralph index --update .

5. Documentation

• Add Ralph to the "What Gets Installed" table in README
• Document usage in the Shortcuts & Aliases section

Tasks

• Research Ralph's latest installation method (Nix package, npm, or pip)
• Add Ralph to flake.nix or justfile npm recipe
• Create just ralph-init and just ralph-refresh recipes
• Integrate Ralph context with Claude Code configuration
• Integrate Ralph context with the orchestrator pipeline
• Explore Ralph as an MCP server for Pi/Claude Code
• Update README with Ralph documentation
• Test end-to-end on a fresh nix develop shell

[bBlazewavE]

Ralph integration is a great idea for enriching AI context. However, it depends on Ralph's current maturity and availability as a Nix package. I'll research Ralph's integration methods and revisit this after verifying it's easy to add. For now, deferring pending research.