I am using sbcl,

vend init and then vend get work fine and download deps to /vendored

vend init
> modify .asd with :str by:
>   :depends-on (:str)
vend get 
> downloads str to /vendored
vend repl sbcl --eval "(asdf:load-system :str)"

// fails

seems to work fine when I do this

vend repl
> (asdf:load-system :str)
> (str:version)

// too many manual steps by writing into the repl :)

does not work with vend repl sbcl --load str.lisp either, nor --script.

I like to start swank like this:

alias swank='rlwrap sbcl --eval "(asdf:load-system :swank)" --eval "(swank:create-server :dont-close t)"' (this works with ocicl)

With qlot it works fine:

rlwrap qlot exec sbcl --eval "(asdf:load-system :swank)" --eval "(swank:create-server :dont-close t)"