NPM-PUBLISH(1)

NAME
npm-publish - Publish a package

  Synopsis

    npm publish [<tarball>|<folder>] [--tag <tag>] [--access <public|restricted>] [--otp otpcode] [--dry-run]
    Publishes '.' if no argument supplied
    Sets tag 'latest' if no --tag specified

  Description

Publishes a package to the registry so that it can be installed by name.

By default npm will publish to the public registry. This can be overridden by specifying a different default registry or using a npm help scope in the name (see npm help package.json).

    •   <folder>: A folder containing a package.json file

    •   <tarball>: A url or file path to a gzipped tar archive containing a single folder with a package.json file inside.

    •   [--tag <tag>]: Registers the published package with the given tag, such that npm install <name>@<tag> will install this version. By default, npm publish updates and npm install installs the latest tag. See npm-dist-tag npm-dist-tag for details about tags.

    •   [--access <public|restricted>]: Tells the registry whether this package should be published as public or restricted. Only applies to scoped packages, which default to restricted. If you don't have a paid account, you must publish with --access public to publish scoped packages.

    •   [--otp <otpcode>]: If you have two-factor authentication enabled in auth-and-writes mode then you can provide a code from your authenticator with this. If you don't include this and you're running from a TTY then you'll be prompted.

    •   [--dry-run]: As of npm@6, does everything publish would do except actually publishing to the registry. Reports the details of what would have been published.

The publish will fail if the package name and version combination already exists in the specified registry.

Once a package is published with a given name and version, that specific name and version combination can never be used again, even if it is removed with npm help unpublish.

As of npm@5, both a sha1sum and an integrity field with a sha512sum of the tarball will be submitted to the registry during publication. Subsequent installs will use the strongest supported algorithm to verify downloads.

Similar to --dry-run see npm help pack, which figures out the files to be included and packs them into a tarball to be uploaded to the registry.

  Files included in package

To see what will be included in your package, run npx npm-packlist. All files are included by default, with the following exceptions:

    •   Certain files that are relevant to package installation and distribution are always included. For example, package.json, README.md, LICENSE, and so on.

    •   If there is a "files" list in npm help package.json, then only the files specified will be included. (If directories are specified, then they will be walked recursively and their contents included, subject to the same ignore rules.)

    •   If there is a .gitignore or .npmignore file, then ignored files in that and all child directories will be excluded from the package. If both files exist, then the .gitignore is ignored, and only the .npmignore is used. .npmignore files follow the same pattern rules https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Recording-Changes-to-the-Repository#_ignoring as .gitignore files

    •   If the file matches certain patterns, then it will never be included, unless explicitly added to the "files" list in package.json, or un-ignored with a ! rule in a .npmignore or .gitignore file.

    •   Symbolic links are never included in npm packages.

See npm help developers for full details on what's included in the published package, as well as details on how the package is built.

  See Also

    •   npm-packlist package http://npm.im/npm-packlist

    •   npm help registry

    •   npm help scope

    •   npm help adduser

    •   npm help owner

    •   npm help deprecate

    •   npm help dist-tag

    •   npm help pack

    •   npm help profile