npm Release

npm Release

Overview

Publish an npm package from this repo with local verification, clean package contents, and npm browser authentication. For Skill Zoo today, the npm package is the CLI package in packages/cli; the workspace root is private and is not the package to publish.

Announce at start: "I'm using the npm-release skill to publish the npm package."

Privacy Guardrails

Do not write private npm account details into repo files, skill files, logs, release notes, or final summaries. This includes npm usernames, email addresses, authentication secrets, browser auth URLs, auth IDs, tokens, local npm debug log paths, and machine-specific temporary directories.

It is fine to state generic facts such as "npm required browser authentication" or "the authenticated owner account was permitted." Do not paste the actual authentication URL into a committed file. If a URL is needed transiently, use it only to complete the live browser flow.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• The user says "publish npm", "release the npm package", "npm publish", "发 npm", or "发布 npm 包"
• The package is in a workspace and you need to identify the real publishable package
• npm publish fails with duplicate version, npm authentication, owner, tarball, or bin problems
• The user asks whether a package is ready for npm publication
• A release bump needs to update package metadata and lockfile state consistently

Do not use this skill for:

• Desktop app GitHub Releases or Homebrew cask releases; use app-release
• Tauri updater implementation; use tauri-updater
• Publishing a package you have not locally verified

Package Target

For this repo, start with the CLI package:

cd packages/cli

Confirm the root package is not the target:

node -e "console.log(require('./package.json').private)"
node -e "const p=require('./packages/cli/package.json'); console.log(p.name, p.version, p.bin)"

If the target changes in the future, publish from the directory whose package.json has the public npm name, bin, files, scripts.prepack, and production dependencies.

Preflight

Check the repo instructions and current working tree first:

test -f CLAUDE.md && sed -n '1,220p' CLAUDE.md
test -f AGENTS.md && sed -n '1,220p' AGENTS.md
git status --short

Do not revert or overwrite unrelated changes. If publish-relevant files already have user edits, inspect them and work with the current state.

Check npm registry state before changing versions:

cd packages/cli
npm view skill-zoo version dist-tags --json
npm view skill-zoo versions --json
npm whoami
npm owner ls skill-zoo

If the local version already exists on npm, explain that npm versions are immutable and ask the user which new version to publish before changing files. Do not choose or apply the release version silently.

Version Bump

For the Skill Zoo CLI package, update:

• packages/cli/package.json
• bun.lock workspace entry for packages/cli

Ask the user to confirm the exact version before editing release files. If they ask for a recommendation, propose the smallest sensible semver bump and explain why, then wait for confirmation before applying it.

After bumping, search for hardcoded old versions that should follow the package version:

OLD_VERSION=<previous-version>
rg "\"version\": \"${OLD_VERSION}\"|skill-zoo-cli@${OLD_VERSION}|skill-zoo@${OLD_VERSION}" packages/cli bun.lock

Tests should generally depend on CLI_VERSION rather than hardcoding a release version. This prevents a release bump from breaking tests only because an expected metadata string changed.

Required Verification

Run these from packages/cli after any version or release-related change:

npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run build
npm publish --dry-run

The dry-run must show the expected version and tarball contents. For this CLI, expected package contents are small and should normally be:

README.md
dist/index.js
package.json
wui/app.js
wui/index.html
wui/styles.css

There is deliberately no dist/index.d.ts. The CLI entry (packages/cli/src/index.ts) is a shebang script that calls runCli() and exports nothing, so the declaration file tsup's --dts emitted contained only the shebang line — a type contract with no types. It was also unreachable: the package declares bin and no main/exports/types, so a consumer's import ... from "skill-zoo" fails with TS2307 before the file is ever read (wiring up types instead yields TS2306: is not a module). Rather than keep a misleading empty file, the build no longer emits declarations. If the CLI ever grows a programmatic API, re-add declarations and the types/exports wiring together.

If extra source, test, repo, log, or private files appear, fix the files whitelist or ignore rules before publishing.

CLI Package Checks

Before publishing a CLI package, verify the executable path matches bin and can start from the built artifact:

cd ../..
sed -n '1,20p' packages/cli/src/index.ts
sed -n '1,20p' packages/cli/dist/index.js
ls -l packages/cli/dist/index.js
node packages/cli/dist/index.js --version
node packages/cli/dist/index.js --help | sed -n '1,120p'

For higher confidence, install the actual tarball in a temporary project and run both binary names:

cd packages/cli
tmp="$(mktemp -d)"
npm pack --pack-destination "$tmp"
mkdir "$tmp/install"
cd "$tmp/install"
npm init -y >/dev/null
npm install "$tmp"/skill-zoo-*.tgz
./node_modules/.bin/skill-zoo --version
./node_modules/.bin/szoo --help | sed -n '1,40p'

Do not commit generated tarballs or temporary install directories.

Publishing

Publish only after typecheck, tests, build, and npm publish --dry-run pass. Before the real npm publish, summarize the package name, version, dist tag, and tarball contents, then ask the user for explicit confirmation.

Log in first. --auth-type=web authenticates npm login, not npm publish — publishing while unauthenticated fails with a 404 that masks the real cause. Ensure a valid token exists (see "Non-TTY browser authentication") before publishing, and drop --auth-type=web from the publish command.

Working directory does not persist between tool calls. Always include cd <path> in the command itself — never assume a previous cd still applies. When publishing from a workspace sub-package, use an absolute cd prefix:

cd /path/to/repo/packages/cli && npm publish --registry https://registry.npmjs.org/

Preferred command after user confirmation:

cd packages/cli
npm publish --registry https://registry.npmjs.org/

If the machine's default registry is a read-only mirror (e.g. registry.npmmirror.com), the explicit --registry https://registry.npmjs.org/ is required — mirrors do not accept publishes.