ralpi/tasks/ralph-loop-fixes/01-fix-loadconfig-graceful-default.md

01. Fix loadConfig to return defaults gracefully when .ralph/config.yaml is missing

meta: id: ralph-loop-fixes-01 feature: ralph-loop-fixes priority: P1 depends_on: [] tags: [implementation, utils]

objective:

• loadConfig() should return DEFAULT_CONFIG silently when .ralph/config.yaml does not exist, without logging a warning to stderr

deliverables:

• Modified src/utils.ts — loadConfig() function

steps:

• Open src/utils.ts and locate loadConfig()
• Add fs.existsSync() check before fs.readFileSync()
• If config file does not exist, return a deep copy of DEFAULT_CONFIG without any console output
• If config file exists but is malformed, fall back to defaults silently
• Remove or suppress the console.warn() call

tests:

• Manual: Run /ralph resume in a project directory with no .ralph/ directory — should not print warning
• Manual: Run /ralph run in a project with .ralph/progress.json but no config.yaml — should proceed with defaults

acceptance_criteria:

• No console warning when config.yaml is missing
• loadConfig() returns a valid RalphConfig object in all cases
• Existing behavior with valid config.yaml is unchanged

validation:

• Check src/utils.ts loadConfig function returns silently on missing file
• Verify no console.warn or console.error in the missing-config path

notes:

• Current code at line ~145 in utils.ts: fs.readFileSync(configPath, "utf-8") throws ENOENT
• The try-catch does catch it but still logs the warning — the warning is noisy for normal usage where config is optional