---
title: "Working with Ralphy"
description: "Day-to-day how-to for non-technical creators and power users — briefs, templates, generation, review, render, batches, profiles."
---

Ralphy is a conversation. You describe what you want; Ralphy asks the questions a good producer would ask, drafts a plan, then makes the video one beat at a time so you can correct course before it spends money. This section is the day-to-day operator's manual — how to phrase a brief, how to pick a template, how to review variants, how to render, how to ship a batch, and where the receipts live.

If you read [What is Ralphy](/concepts/what-is-ralphy) and ran [your first video](/quickstart/first-video), this section is the next stop. The pages assume the binary works and the keys are set; if either isn't true, jump to [Setup & doctor](/cli/setup-doctor) first.

## Where to start

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Talking to Ralphy" href="/working/talking-to-ralphy">
    Chat is the interface. How phrasing maps to playbooks, with eight worked utterances.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Starting a project" href="/working/starting-a-project">
    The intake protocol — five questions, a draft plan, then one beat at a time.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Picking a template" href="/working/picking-a-template">
    `template suggest` is Ralphy's first move. 54 templates, two kinds, five categories.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Brands, personas, refs" href="/working/brand-persona-refs">
    When to lock identity. The reference-required gate and the `--no-ref-consent` override.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Generating assets" href="/working/generating-assets">
    The five `generate` sub-verbs, defaults from `MODELS.md`, dry-run, slot IDs.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Reviewing and iterating" href="/working/reviewing-iterating">
    Append-only versions, `.v2.<ext>` on regen, promoting a winner, when to stop.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Rendering" href="/working/rendering">
    `ralphy render <id>`, the `--loudnorm` pass, render history, perf targets.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Batches" href="/working/batches">
    N ≥ 3 = batch. Cost rollup, parallel render, auto-postmortem.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Profiles" href="/working/profiles">
    Portable identity. Export your brand, persona, refs, and templates as a PR.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Logs and costs" href="/working/logs-and-costs">
    Three JSONL logs that never lie. Timeline, cost rollup, postmortem.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## The disciplines that aren't optional

A handful of rules cut across every page below. Knowing them up front saves money.

- **Append-only on generations.** Ralphy never overwrites a generated file when you regen — the new version lands at `.v2.<ext>`, the old one stays on disk, and the manifest tracks both. This is [AGENTS invariant #13](https://github.com/alecs5am/ralphy/blob/main/AGENTS.md). Pass `--force-overwrite` only if you genuinely want the legacy destructive behavior.
- **The reference-required gate.** When your brief names a real person, a recognizable brand product, or a known IP, Ralphy refuses to generate until you attach a reference image — or until you opt out per-call with `--no-ref-consent "<reason>"`. Generic work ("my coffee shop's new pastry") proceeds without a ref. This is [AGENTS invariant #3](https://github.com/alecs5am/ralphy/blob/main/AGENTS.md).
- **`ralphy` is the only entry point.** No raw `curl`, no `bunx hyperframes render`, no ad-hoc `ffmpeg`. Every model call, render, and project mutation flows through a `ralphy` verb so the cost rollup, the manifest, and the gen-log stay honest.

## Related

- [Quickstart: first video](/quickstart/first-video) — end-to-end walkthrough before you read this section
- [What is Ralphy](/concepts/what-is-ralphy) — the mental model
- [CLI overview](/cli/overview) — every verb in one place
- [Playbooks and skills](/concepts/playbooks-and-skills) — what Ralphy reads before acting
- [`AGENTS.md`](https://github.com/alecs5am/ralphy/blob/main/AGENTS.md) — the routing contract
