Npm Publish

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to create a new package and publish it to the npm registry.

Publishing your package to npm

First, you need to create a new account by visiting the npmjs.com’s sign up page. The important information is the username, password, and public email. You’ll need this information when you publish your package.

Then, you create a new package e.g., galaxy-lib. In the galaxy-lib directory, you run the npm init --yes command to create the package.json file:

npm init --yesCode language: Shell Session (shell)

After having the package.json file, you can create a new module called index.js that has a simple function which returns the number of galaxies:

module.exports.count = function () {
    return 1000000;
}Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Third, to publish the package to npm, from the terminal, you use the npm login command:

npm loginCode language: Shell Session (shell)

It will prompt you to enter the following information: username, password, and email.

Finally, you run the npm publish command to publish the galaxy-lib package to the npm registry.

npm publishCode language: Shell Session (shell)

If you received an error after running the npm publish command, it’s likely that the package that you were publishing has a name that already exists. In this case, you need to change the package name in the package.json file to something unique.

Using the published package

To use the galaxy-lib package, you create a new Node project called galaxy-demo and run the npm init command:

npm init --yesCode language: Shell Session (shell)

To install the galaxy-lib package that you have published, you run the npm install command:

npm install galaxy-libCode language: Shell Session (shell)

The following creates the app.js and use the galaxy-lib package:

const galaxy = require('galaxy-lib');
console.log(galaxy.count());Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Finally, run the app.js program using the following command:

node app.jsCode language: Shell Session (shell)

Output:

1000000Code language: Shell Session (shell)

Unpublishing a your package

After you publish a package to the npm registry, others may be already using it. Therefore, unpublishing a package from the npm registry is generally considered bad behavior.

If you are sure what you are doing, you can run the npm unpublish command to unpublish a package:

npm unpublish [<@scope>/]<package_name>[@<version>]Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

The npm unpublish command removes the version of the package from the npm registry, deletes its entry, and removes the tarball.

To encourage other developers to not use a package or update the versions, you should use the npm deprecate command instead:

npm deprecate <package_name>[@<version>] <deprecation_message>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

This npm deprecate command updates the npm registry for a package and issues a deprecation warning to anyone who attempts to install it

Summary

• Use npm publish command to publish your package to the npm registry.
• Avoid using the npm unpublish command to remove the published package from the npm registry.
• Use npm deprecate command to deprecate a published package.