primer/publish

This GitHub Action publishes to npm with the following conventions:

1. If we're on the default branch, the version field is used as-is and we just run npm publish --access public.
   • After publishing a new version on the default branch, we tag the commit SHA with v{version} via the GitHub API.
   • If the version in package.json is already published, we exit with a 0 code. Previously, we exited with a 78 code, which was Actions v1-speak for "neutral", but this has been removed from Actions v2.
2. If we're on a release-<version> branch, we publish a release candidate to the next npm dist-tag with the version in the form: <version>-rc.<sha>.
   • A status check is created with the context npm version noting whether the version field in package.json matches the <version> portion of the branch. If it doesn't, the check's status is marked as pending.
3. Otherwise, we publish a "canary" release, which has a version in the form: 0.0.0-<sha>.

Status checks

Depending on the branch, a series of statuses will be created by this action in your checks: publish is the action's check, and publish {package-name} is a commit status created by the action that reports the version published and links to unpkg.com via "Details":

If you're on a release branch (release-<version>) and the <version> portion of the branch name doesn't match the version field in package.json, you'll get a pending status reminding you to update it:

Usage

You will need to provide an npm access token with publish permissions via the NPM_AUTH_TOKEN secret in the Actions visual editor if you haven't already. The GITHUB_TOKEN secret is also required to create tags after releasing on the master branch.

We suggest that you place this action after any linting and/or testing actions to catch as many errors as possible before publishing.

Actions

To use this in an Actions workflow, add the following YAML to one or more of your steps:

- uses: primer/publish@v3
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    NPM_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_AUTH_TOKEN }}

You can pass additional inputs via the with key:

- name: Publish to the npm registry
  uses: "primer/publish@v3"
  with:
    npm-args: "--unsafe-perm --allow-same-version"
    default-branch: "main"

Inputs

dry_run

Does everything publish would do except actually publishing to the registry. Reports the details of what would have been published.

Default: false

Example

- name: Publish to the npm registry
  uses: "primer/publish@v3"
  with:
    dry_run: true

dir

Accepts a path to the directory that contains the package.json to publish.

Default: .

Example

- name: Publish to the npm registry
  uses: "primer/publish@v3"
  with:
    dir: "packages/example"
}

npm_args

It's possible to pass additional arguments to npm via the npm_args input in your workflow action.

- name: Publish to the npm registry
  uses: "primer/publish@v3"
  with:
    npm_args: "--unsafe-perm --allow-same-version"

default_branch

The branch you'd like to use to trigger releases. Typically this is main or master.

Default: master

- name: Publish to the npm registry
  uses: "primer/publish@v3"
  with:
    default_branch: "main"

release_tag

The release_tag input can be used to override the auto-generated release tag.

Default: latest

- name: Publish to the npm registry
  uses: "primer/publish@v3"
  with:
    release_tag: "1.0.0"