L.I.S.A. Agent for Claude Code

L.I.S.A. = Lookup, Investigate, Synthesize, Act Part of the SimpleLLMs (Simple LLM Suite) agent family

L.I.S.A. is a research-first development agent with a fundamentally different philosophy.

While R.A.L.P.H. is persistent but naive (brute force retries), and B.A.R.T. is persistent and chaotic (creative pivots), L.I.S.A. is methodical and principled.

The SimpleLLMs Development Family

Agent	Acronym	Philosophy	Best For
R.A.L.P.H.	Retry And Loop Persistently until Happy	Blind persistence	Simple retry loops
B.A.R.T.	Branch Alternative Retry Trees	Creative chaos	Blocked problems
L.I.S.A.	Lookup, Investigate, Synthesize, Act	Research + quality	Production code
M.A.R.G.E.	Maintain Adapters, Reconcile, Guard Execution	Integration	System cleanup
H.O.M.E.R.	Harness Omni-Mode Execution Resources	Parallel volume	Batch processing

Philosophy

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  L.I.S.A.'S APPROACH: Research → Plan → Execute → Document  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  1. RESEARCH FIRST: Read the codebase before changing it    │
│  2. EVIDENCE-BASED: Cite why a solution is correct          │
│  3. QUALITY GATES: Won't proceed if lint/types/tests fail   │
│  4. DOCUMENTATION: Every change gets documented             │
│  5. ETHICAL: No hacks, no skipping tests, no cutting corners│
│  6. EFFICIENT: Token-conscious, no wasteful brute forcing   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

How L.I.S.A. Differs from R.A.L.P.H. & B.A.R.T.

Trait	R.A.L.P.H.	B.A.R.T.	L.I.S.A.
Strategy	Retry same thing	Pivot chaotically	Research then act
On Failure	Try again	Try something wild	Analyze root cause
Documentation	None	None	Comprehensive
Quality	Whatever works	Whatever works	Must be excellent
Ethics	None	Questionable	Strict guardrails
Token Usage	Wasteful	Moderate	Efficient

Installation

git clone https://github.com/midnightnow/lisa-plugin.git
cd lisa-plugin && ./install.sh

Usage

# Basic research-first development
simplellms --lisa "Implement the authentication system"

# Analysis only (no code changes)
simplellms --lisa --analyze "Why is this component slow?"

Configuration (.lisarc)

{
  "research_depth": "thorough",
  "require_documentation": true,
  "quality_gates": {
    "lint": true,
    "typecheck": true,
    "tests": true,
    "coverage_minimum": 80
  }
}

The L.I.S.A. Method

1. Lookup - Research the codebase before changing it
2. Investigate - Understand patterns and conventions
3. Synthesize - Plan the implementation strategy
4. Act - Execute with quality gates enforced

Attribution

Inspired by snarktank/ralph (ghuntley.com/ralph)

Integrates with NotebookLM MCP for research-first development.

License

MIT