Publishing to the Github Packages registry for npm

Introduction

This is about :

• publishing to an NPM registry
• ... which is the Github Packaged registry (for NPM)
• ... with semantic-release
• ... in a Github Actions CI workflow

Configuration for publishing

• in package.json, the package must be named "@context/repo-name", where context is either a Github username (in lowercase) or a Github organization (in lowercase). Eg :

  "name": "@rupertbarrow/rapido-sf-plugin"

• in package.json, the repository must be named with an url, like this :

  "repository": {
    "url": "git+https://github.com/RupertBarrow/rapido-sf-plugin.git"
  }

• in package.json, the publishConfig entry must follow the following syntax (note, NO username) :

  "publishConfig": {
    "registry": "https://npm.pkg.github.com/"
  }

• in Github Actions workflow, call run the semantic release like this :

    - run: npx semantic-release
      env:
        NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
        # Github personal access token (classic, not fine-grained) with these permissions :
        # repo, write:packages, read:packages and delete:packages

• in Github, create a personal access token as described above and paste its value into the repository or organization secret called NPM_TOKEN
• I use this NPM_TOKEN, and not the GITHUB_TOKEN

Configuration for using

I am publishing to a private repository. This is why I will need to authenticate to be able to install use my npm package in my work environment.

For this, I have created a file named ~/.npmrc with :

//npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken=ghp_myGithubPersonalAccessToken
@rupertbarrow:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com

• the Github Personal Access token I created and used in NPM_TOKEN is placed in the first line
• my username appears on the second line, WITH an @

I can now install my sf plugin like this, for example :

sf plugin install @rupertbarrow/rapido-sf-plugin@1.8.9