Introduction

A reference for myself. Hence the use of pnpm which I use most of the time. 🤷

1. Initial Setup

# Initialize package
pnpm init
# Set up typescript, tests, etc
pnpm add -D typescript tsup vitest ... etc

# Setup GitHub repo
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git remote add origin <repo-url>
git push -u origin main

2. Pre-publish Checklist

# Update package.json
{
  "name": "@yourscope/package-name",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "./dist/index.cjs",
  "module": "./dist/index.js",
  "types": "./dist/index.d.ts",
  "files": ["dist"],
  "scripts": {
    "build": "tsup",
    "test": "vitest",
    "prepublishOnly": "pnpm test && pnm build"
  }
}

# Login to npm (one-time)
pnpm login

3. Publishing Process

# Version bump (automatically creates git tag)
pnpm version patch  # 0.0.1 -> 0.0.2
# or
pnpm version minor  # 0.0.1 -> 0.1.0
# or
pnpm version major  # 0.0.1 -> 1.0.0

# Push code and tags
git push
git push --tags

# Publish to npm
pnpm publish --access public  # --access public only needed first time for scoped packages

4. GitHub Release

Go to GitHub after pushing tags
Releases > Draft new release
Choose the tag
Write release notes
Publish release

5. Subsequent Releases

# Make changes
git commit -m "feat: new feature"

# Version and publish
pnpm version minor
git push && git push --tags
pnpm publish

# Create GitHub release

Common Version Types

patch: Bug fixes (1.0.0 -> 1.0.1)
minor: New features, backward compatible (1.0.0 -> 1.1.0)
major: Breaking changes (1.0.0 -> 2.0.0)

Best Practices

Always run tests before publishing
Keep consistent version numbers between git tags and npm
Write clear release notes
Consider semantic versioning (semver)
Use a .npmignore or files array to control published contents
Set up CI/CD for automated testing/publishing

This workflow ensures:

Version control is in sync with package versions
Changes are properly documented
Package is tested before publishing
GitHub and npm stay in sync

Reference for publishing NPM packages

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Introduction

1. Initial Setup

2. Pre-publish Checklist

3. Publishing Process

4. GitHub Release

5. Subsequent Releases

Common Version Types

Best Practices

Command Palette

Comments

More from this blog

Introduction

1. Initial Setup

2. Pre-publish Checklist

3. Publishing Process

4. GitHub Release

5. Subsequent Releases

Common Version Types

Best Practices