Publish NPM package with GitHub Actions, Hacker News

              

On couple of my projects, I started usingGitHub Actions. I also wanted to use it forpentest-tool-lite, where I want to run TypeScript lint after each push and publish it to npm after release is created. I had someproblemswhich I recently solved, so I am sharing my solution.

Workflow

Let’s create a basic script, to publish package tonpmwhen a new release is created. I named the filepublish.ymland the workflow name is alsopublish. It should run only when a release is published. (You can create just pre-release or draft, where you don’t want to run this script)

name: Publish  on:   release:     types: [published]

Job steps are simple. We need to install dependencies, build the project and publish it. Start with the easy one – install and build:

jobs:   build:      runs-on: ubuntu-latest      steps:     - uses: actions / checkout @ v1     - name: Install dependencies       run: yarn install     - name: Build       run: yarn run build

This will make the project ready for upload. To be able to publish it, you need to login into npm, or create there a token, which you can use for this purpose. Go to npm, log in, and create new token:

Copy the value and add it as aSecretin GitHub project settings.

npm and yarn will use this token, if it is stored in. npmrcfile in your home directory. So the next step is to create such a file.

- name: Create .npmrc       run: echo "//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=$NODE_AUTH_TOKEN">>~ / .npmrc       env:         NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: $ {{secrets.NPM_TOKEN}}

The last step is to upload it to npm. Version, which you choosed during creating the release is available in$ GITHUB_REFvariable as a reference to the tag (example: refs / tags / 1.2.3). If you want to pass it to the publish command, you need to remove this prefix.

Btw, if you useyarn publish, it will upload files and then create a commit. The problem I encountered is, that git needs to have user name and email to be able to commit. It is not a problem to set it, if you want, or just disable this feature by adding a- no-git-tag-versionargument.

- name: Publish       run: yarn publish --new-version $ {GITHUB_REF # "refs / tags /"} --no-git-tag-version

Final script

name: Publish  on:   release:     types: [published]  jobs:   build:      runs-on: ubuntu-latest      steps:     - uses: actions / checkout @ v1     - name: Install dependencies       run: yarn install     - name: Build       run: yarn run build     - name: Create .npmrc       run: echo "//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=$NODE_AUTH_TOKEN">>~ / .npmrc       env:         NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: $ {{secrets.NPM_TOKEN}}     - name: Publish       run: yarn publish --new-version $ {GITHUB_REF # "refs / tags /"} --no-git-tag-version