Node.js NPM Auto Release

Overview

Provide a repeatable workflow to prepare, verify, and ship npm packages with a combined auto-version-and-publish GitHub Action, plus local checks before push.

Setup Checklist

• Add release scripts in package.json

{ "scripts": { "release:patch": "npm version patch -m "chore(release): v%s"", "release:minor": "npm version minor -m "chore(release): v%s"", "release:major": "npm version major -m "chore(release): v%s"" } }

• Add .npmignore to keep packages clean

Typical entries:

• .github/

• .claude/

• docs/

• tests/

• .env

• node_modules/

• Add the combined workflow file

Create .github/workflows/auto-version-publish.yml with:

name: auto version and publish

on: push: branches: - main

permissions: contents: write id-token: write

jobs: release: if: ${{ !contains(github.event.head_commit.message, 'chore(release):') }} runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Checkout uses: actions/checkout@v4 with: fetch-depth: 0

  - name: Setup Node.js
    uses: actions/setup-node@v4
    with:
      node-version: "18"
      registry-url: "https://registry.npmjs.org"

  - name: Install dependencies
    run: |
      npm ci

  - name: Typecheck
    run: |
      npm run typecheck

  - name: Test
    run: |
      npm test

  - name: Configure git
    run: |
      git config user.name "github-actions[bot]"
      git config user.email "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"

  - name: Bump patch version and tag
    run: |
      npm version patch -m "chore(release): v%s [skip ci]"

  - name: Push version bump and tag
    run: |
      git push origin HEAD:main --follow-tags

  - name: Publish
    env:
      NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
    run: |
      npm publish --access public

• Set GitHub secret

Add NPM_TOKEN in repo Secrets with publish permission.

Release Workflow

• Local checks

npm run typecheck npm test npm pack --dry-run

• Commit and push

git add -A git commit -m "feat: update package" git push origin main

• Verify release

• Ensure auto version and publish workflow succeeds

• Confirm new tag created

• Confirm npm version:

npm view <package-name> version

Notes

• Auto-release skips commits containing chore(release): to avoid loops.

• If you need manual bump, use npm run release:patch then push tags.