Lamar

Designed to work with your thinkingthrowing style.

Describe what you want in messy, normal words. Lamar asks the right questions, writes a build-ready spec, and hands it to a robot that builds it while you walk away.

Install Lamar GitHub
the origin story

They didn't fix Lamar's throw.

In Revenge of the Nerds, the nerds need to win the javelin event. Lamar throws with a limp-wristed flick that no coach could straighten out.

So they don't straighten it out. Wormser — the aerodynamics guy — builds a javelin around the throw Lamar already has. It leaves his hand, flaps down the field like a startled bird, and lands past everyone.

"Wormser! It worked!" — Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

That's the whole idea. Don't retrain the person. Engineer the tool around how they already work.

Comic illustration: a track athlete mid-leap having just thrown a javelin that bends into a wavy flight path, while baffled muscle-bound jocks look on.
…the throw that won the Greek Games.
same move, for code

You think in wishes. Robots build from specs.

Most tools make you do the translating — sit down, learn the format, write a tidy PRD. That's coaching your throw.

Lamar is the javelin. It sits between you and the build-it robot, takes your fuzzy wish, and shapes it — by asking the right questions in your language — until it means exactly what you meant. Then it writes the spec for you. You never have to learn the format. The tool bends to your style, not the other way around.

how it works

Fuzzy idea in. Built code out.

1

You describe it loosely

"The list is slow, page through it, newest first." Lamar asks the questions a builder would otherwise have to guess.

2

Lamar writes the checklist

It emits a prd.json — small, ordered, independently checkable steps. A to-do list a robot can actually follow.

3

Ralph builds it

The Ralph runner does each step, checks its own work, commits, ticks the box — until every box is ticked.

fuzzy idea → /lamar → prd.json → Ralph builds it

get it

Install & run

Lamar is a Claude Code plugin. Add the marketplace, install it, and start any non-trivial build with /lamar.

# 1. install Lamar (the thinker)
/plugin marketplace add henryjrobinson/lamar
/plugin install lamar

When Lamar hands you a prd.json, give it to Ralph (the builder) to run the whole thing locally:

# 2. install the runner once, then point it at the file
git clone https://github.com/snarktank/ralph
cp prd.json ralph/prd.json
cd ralph && ./ralph.sh --tool claude

Honest cost of entry: "no private infrastructure" is true, but it isn't zero-setup. You need the Lamar plugin, a clone of snarktank/ralph (which needs jq), and the claude CLI. All free; three small installs.