Lamar

Designed to work with your throwing thinking style.

Lamar is an interview-driven spec tool. It talks with you, asks the right questions, and produces a build-ready ralph.md so the building can be automated — shaping the spec around how you think instead of forcing you into a fixed PRD format. It meets three kinds of people where they are:

• Knows what they want, but not how to build it — Lamar draws out the spec in plain terms.
• A strong technical spec already — Lamar challenges assumptions and stress-tests it.
• A complete novice — Lamar walks through the tradeoffs and nails down the spec before building.

Why "Lamar"?

Named after Lamar Latrelle in Revenge of the Nerds (1984). In the Greek Games javelin event, the nerds don't retrain Lamar's throw — they engineer a javelin around his throwing style, and it whips down the field to win. Same idea here: the tool adapts to your style instead of making you adapt to it.

"Wormser's a master at aerodynamics, and he designed the javelin to go along with Lamar's limp-wristed throwing style." … "Wormser! It worked!" — Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

How it works

Lamar is the thinker; Ralph is the builder.

/lamar  →  asks the right questions  →  emits a build-ready prd.json
        →  you hand it to Ralph       →  ./ralph.sh builds it, story by story

Lamar refines your wish until it's unambiguous, then writes a prd.json — a checklist of small, independently verifiable steps. Ralph reads that checklist, builds the highest-priority unfinished step, checks its own work, commits, ticks the box, and moves on — until every box is ticked. No servers, no private infrastructure.

Install

# add this repo as a plugin marketplace, then install the lamar plugin
/plugin marketplace add henryjrobinson/lamar
/plugin install lamar

Then start any non-trivial build with /lamar (or just describe what you want — Lamar triggers on "let's build", "add", "fix", "change", …). It sizes the work and, for anything beyond a trivial change, runs a short refinement conversation before emitting the package.

Run it (the hand-off to Ralph)

Lamar emits a prd.json. To build it autonomously, install the Ralph runner once and point it at the file:

git clone https://github.com/snarktank/ralph
cp prd.json ralph/prd.json          # the prd.json Lamar wrote
cd ralph && ./ralph.sh --tool claude

Honest cost of entry. "No private infrastructure" is true, but it isn't literally zero-setup. To run the build loop you need: this Lamar plugin, a clone of snarktank/ralph (which needs jq), and the claude CLI. All free; three small installs. Lamar itself only writes the prd.json — it never runs the loop for you.

Configure per repo (optional)

Drop a .lamar.md in your repo root to set the tier floor, coding standards, test expectations, data class, and the execution target. The default target is ralph (local). See .lamar.md.example.

Example

examples/pagination/ walks a real fuzzy wish ("the list is slow, page through it, newest first") all the way to the prd.json Lamar emits and the command that builds it.

Brand assets

See assets/brand/ — full spec, sizes, and regeneration notes in assets/brand/BRAND.md. Highlights:

• repo-card-1280x640.png — social card / README banner
• promo-video.mp4 — short promo clip
• icon-javelin-mark.png + favicon-* — favicon; icon-character-badge.png — avatar