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Optional Sponsio Lifecycle Hardening

Note: Sponsio is an Ella Rock Software tool and is not yet publicly available. This page documents dotpack's optional, opt-in post-install lifecycle mechanism using Sponsio as the reference example. dotpack itself never requires Sponsio — a normal install does not touch it.

dotpack can run optional post-install lifecycle tasks after it materializes host configuration. The bundled task is for teams that use Sponsio to verify runtime guard wiring.

Lifecycle tasks are not enabled by default. A normal install writes host files and exits without invoking Sponsio or any other external lifecycle tool.

Enable Lifecycle Verification

Install and configure Sponsio separately, then pass --run-lifecycle:

CATALOG=/path/to/project/.agents
TARGET=/path/to/project

dotpack install "$CATALOG/hooks/bash-guard.hook.json" --kind hook --agent agents-cli --scope project --run-lifecycle
dotpack install-all --from "$CATALOG" --target "$TARGET" --agent agents-cli --scope project --run-lifecycle

dotpack resolves the Sponsio binary from PATH or DOTPACK_SPONSIO_BINARY. When lifecycle verification is enabled, the bundled task:

  1. Runs sponsio host install claude-code --mode observe.
  2. Runs sponsio host status claude-code.
  3. Fails the dotpack command if verification fails.

The install output is still materialized before lifecycle verification runs. If verification fails, inspect the reported Sponsio command and fix the Sponsio installation or hook wiring before treating the install as complete.

Use --run-lifecycle in team environments where Sponsio is part of your agent runtime safety model. Leave it unset for plain translation, local experiments, and public examples that should not require extra tooling.