getdalo

getdalo is a small Node.js launcher for Dalo, the Git-backed skill manager for AI agents. It downloads the matching official Dalo release on first use, verifies its SHA-256 checksum, caches it locally, and forwards every argument to the binary. This is the official npm launcher for Dalo by Sebastian Software; the CLI and Cargo package are named dalo.

You can ask your coding agent to “Install the Dalo skill manager.” The agent setup guide covers installation of both the CLI and its bundled assistant. No Dalo skill needs to be installed first.

Use it

Run Dalo without a global installation:

npx getdalo --version
npx getdalo init

Or install the launcher globally:

npm install --global getdalo
dalo --help

Install getdalo globally before running dalo autosync install; one-off npx launchers are temporary and are intentionally rejected for scheduled jobs.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or newer
• macOS on Apple Silicon, or Linux on x86_64 or ARM64. Intel Macs are not supported: that build was discontinued with Dalo 1.0, and cargo install dalo compiles from source instead.
• tar on PATH to unpack the official release archive

The first invocation of a getdalo package version needs network access to GitHub Releases. Later invocations use that version's cached binary without a GitHub API call. Each launcher version defaults to its matching Dalo release, so runs are reproducible and a warm cache works offline.

Configuration

| Variable | Purpose | | --- | --- | | DALO_VERSION | Override the package version with <version>, v<version>, or dalo-v<version>. Use latest for an explicit GitHub update lookup; if that lookup fails, the newest usable cached version is used with a warning. | | DALO_CACHE_DIR | Override the executable cache location (default: ~/.cache/dalo). | | DALO_LINUX_LIBC | Override Linux libc detection with gnu or musl. | | HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, NO_PROXY | Route release lookups and downloads through an authorized proxy. Lowercase variants are also supported and take precedence. |

To force a fresh download, remove the selected version from ~/.cache/dalo or set DALO_CACHE_DIR to an empty directory.

The launcher tells the Rust binary whether it was invoked through npm or npx so passive Dalo update notices can recommend the matching upgrade command. It never updates the launcher or cached executable behind npm's back.

Release-metadata lookups time out after 30 seconds; archive downloads use a 10-second response-header timeout and a 120-second body timeout and may be retried up to twice on transient failures (three total attempts). Network errors include their underlying cause and a hint for selecting an exact version. When invoked by npm, the launcher also honors npm_config_proxy, npm_config_https_proxy, and npm_config_noproxy as fallbacks.

Security

The launcher downloads the archive and its .sha256 file from the matching GitHub Release, verifies the checksum, then installs the cached executable with owner-only cache permissions. For Sigstore provenance verification or a non-Node installation, use the official installer.

For Dalo documentation, agent setup, and uninstall guidance, see dalo.sh and the project repository.