Publish your packages to npm automatically in GitHub Actions by updating the version number.

• 🧠 Smart
  Only publishes if the version number in package.json differs from the latest on npm.

• 🛠 Configurable
  Customize the version-checking behavior, the registry URL, and path of your package.

• 🔐 Secure
  Keeps your npm authentication token secret. Doesn't read from or write to ~/.npmrc.

• ⚡ Fast
  100% JavaScript (which is faster than Docker) and bundled to optimize loading time.

• 📤 Outputs
  Exposes the old and new version numbers, and the type of change (major, minor, patch, etc.) as variables that you can use in your workflow.

This package can be used three different ways:

• 🤖 A GitHub Action as part of your CI/CD process

• 🧩 A function that you call in your JavaScript code

• 🖥 A CLI that you run in your terminal

The v1 to v2 upgrade brought a few notable breaking changes. To migrate, make the following updates:

• The type output is now an empty string instead of 'none' when no release occurs

    - run: echo "Version changed!"
  -   if: ${{ steps.publish.outputs.type != 'none' }}
  +   if: ${{ steps.publish.outputs.type }}

• The --ignore-scripts option is now passed to npm publish as a security precaution. If you define any publish lifecycle scripts - prepublishOnly, prepack, prepare, postpack, publish, postpublish - run them explicitly or set the ignore-scripts input to false.

    with:
      token: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
  +   ignore-scripts: false

• The workflow's .npmrc file is no longer modified. If you have any workarounds to adjust for this misbehavior - for example, if you're using actions/setup-node to configure .npmrc - you should remove them.

    - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      with:
        node-version: '18'
        registry-url: https://registry.npmjs.org/
  
    - uses: JS-DevTools/npm-publish@v1
      with:
        token: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
  
    - name: Do some more stuff with npm
      run: npm whoami
      env:
  -     INPUT_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
  +     NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

• The check-version and greater-version-only options have been removed and replaced with strategy.

  • Use strategy: all (default) to publish all versions that do not yet exist in the registry.

      with:
        token: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
    -   check-version: true
    -   greater-version-only: false
    +   strategy: all

  • Use strategy: upgrade to only publish versions that upgrade the selected tag.

      with:
        token: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
    -   check-version: true
    -   greater-version-only: true
    +   strategy: upgrade

  • check-version: false has been removed. You may not need this action if you're not checking already published versions; you can npm directly, instead.

    - - uses: JS-DevTools/npm-publish@v1
    -   with:
    -     token: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
    -     check-version: false
    + - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
    +   with:
    +     node-version: '18'
    +     registry-url: https://registry.npmjs.org/
    + - run: npm publish
    +   env:
    +     NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

See the change log for more details and other changes in the v2 release.

To use the GitHub Action, you'll need to add it as a step in your workflow file. By default, the only thing you need to do is set the token parameter to your npm authentication token.

on:
  push:
    branches: main

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: "18"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test
      - uses: JS-DevTools/npm-publish@v2
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

You can also publish to third-party registries. For example, to publish to the GitHub Package Registry, set token to secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN and registry to https://npm.pkg.github.com:

on:
  push:
    branches: main

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write # allow GITHUB_TOKEN to publish packages
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: "18"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test
      - uses: JS-DevTools/npm-publish@v2
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          registry: "https://npm.pkg.github.com"

You can set any or all of the following input parameters using with:

1. May be specified using publishConfig in package.json.
2. Provenance requires npm >=9.5.0.

npm-publish exposes some output variables, which you can use in later steps of your workflow. To access the output variables, you'll need to set an id for the npm-publish step.

steps:
  - id: publish
    uses: JS-DevTools/npm-publish@v2
    with:
      token: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

  - if: ${{ steps.publish.outputs.type }}
    run: echo "Version changed!"

To use npm-package in your JavaScript code, you'll need to install it using npm or other package manager of choice:

npm install --save-dev @jsdevtools/npm-publish

You can then import it and use it in your code like this:

import { npmPublish } from "@jsdevtools/npm-publish";

// Run npm-publish with all defaults
await npmPublish({ token: "YOUR_NPM_AUTH_TOKEN_HERE" });

As shown in the example above, you should pass an options object to the npmPublish function. In TypeScript, the Options interface is available as an import.

import type { Options } from "@jsdevtools/npm-publish";

1. May be specified using publishConfig in package.json.
2. Provenance requires npm >=9.5.0.

The npmPublish() function returns a promise of a Results object. In TypeScript, the Results interface is available as an import.

import type { Results } from "@jsdevtools/npm-publish";

You can also use npm-publish as a command-line tool in your terminal.

npm install --save-dev @jsdevtools/npm-publish

You can then use it in your terminal or in npm run scripts.

npx npm-publish --token YOUR_NPM_AUTH_TOKEN_HERE

You can customize your call with options to change the registry, package, etc.

npx npm-publish --token YOUR_NPM_AUTH_TOKEN_HERE --registry http://example.com ./path/to/package

Run npm-publish --help to see the full list of options available.

Usage:

  npm-publish <options> [package]

Arguments:

  package                 The path to the package to publish.
                          May be a directory, package.json, or .tgz file.
                          Defaults to the package in the current directory.

Options:

  --token <token>         (Required) npm authentication token.

  --registry <url>        Registry to read from and write to.
                          Defaults to "https://registry.npmjs.org/".

  --tag <tag>             The distribution tag to check against and publish to.
                          Defaults to "latest".

  --access <access>       Package access, may be "public" or "restricted".
                          See npm documentation for details.

  --provenance            Publish with provenance statements.
                          See npm documentation for details.

  --strategy <strategy>   Publish strategy, may be "all" or "upgrade".
                          Defaults to "all", see documentation for details.

  --no-ignore-scripts     Allow lifecycle scripts, which are disabled by default
                          as a security precaution. Defaults to false.

  --dry-run               Do not actually publish anything.
  --quiet                 Only print errors.
  --debug                 Print debug logs.

  -v, --version           Print the version number.
  -h, --help              Show usage text.

Examples:

  $ npm-publish --token abc123 ./my-package

npm-publish is 100% free and open-source, under the MIT license. Use it however you want.

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