npm-stage

Synopsis#

Description#

Staged publishing allows package maintainers to require proof-of-presence for all publishes. Proof-of-presence is where a human is involved, interjects, and provides authentication (2FA) during an action — in this case, publishing an npm package.

Typically when maintainers use automated workflows to publish, proof-of-presence is lacking as there's no convenient way to interject the process and provide 2FA, as is the case for publishing with a granular access token with bypass and the trusted publishing flow. Staged publishing allows users to have their automated workflows stage a package without a 2FA prompt, deferring the act of 2FA, allowing the maintainer to approve the staged package and publish at a later point.

The npm stage publish command packs the current working directory and places that version of the package into the registry in a state where it's not available for public access, allowing maintainers to approve the package at a later point in time. The act of staging does not prompt for 2FA and can be done with any token type, the act of approving will.

Key behaviors:

• Staged packages share the same semver version unique index as published packages — you cannot publish a version that already exists as a staged version for that package.
• You can still publish packages normally while you have staged packages pending.
• You can stage multiple versions of the same package.
• npm stage publish has parity with npm publish and will respect "private": true in package.json, refusing to stage the package.

Prerequisites#

Before using npm stage commands, ensure the following requirements are met:

• Write permissions on the package: You must have write access to the package you're configuring.
• Package must exist: The package you're configuring must already exist on the npm registry.
• 2FA enabled on your account: Commands that require 2FA will prompt you to authenticate. If you don't already have 2FA enabled on your account, you must enable it before using these commands.

Subcommands#

• npm stage publish [<package-spec>] - Stage a package for publishing
• npm stage list [<package-spec>] - List all staged package versions
• npm stage view <stage-id> - View details of a specific staged package
• npm stage approve <stage-id> - Approve a staged package for publishing
• npm stage reject <stage-id> - Reject a staged package
• npm stage download <stage-id> - Download the tarball for inspection

2FA Requirements by Subcommand#

Command	Requires 2FA	Notes
npm stage publish	No	Designed for automated workflows; defers 2FA to approval
npm stage list	No	View staged packages
npm stage view	No	View staged package details
npm stage approve	Yes	Prompts for 2FA to publish the staged package
npm stage reject	Yes	Prompts for 2FA to permanently remove the staged package
npm stage download	No	Downloads the tarball for local inspection

Tag Behavior#

The --tag flag follows the same logic as npm publish. If no tag is provided, the latest tag is used by default. For pre-release versions (e.g., 1.0.0-beta.1) and non-latest semver versions, the tag must be explicitly provided — otherwise the CLI will error, just as npm publish would.

The tag is an immutable property of the staged package. Once a package is staged with a given tag, the tag cannot be changed. If you need to stage the same version with a different tag, you must first reject the existing staged package using npm stage reject and then re-stage it with the desired tag.

Token Behavior#

The key difference with staged publishing is that npm stage publish never requires a 2FA prompt, regardless of token type. This is what makes it suitable for automated workflows. The goal of npm stage publish is deferring proof-of-presence to a later point in time.

Token Type	npm stage publish	npm publish
GAT with bypass	Can stage	Can publish (if allowed by package publishing access)
GAT without bypass	Can stage	2FA prompt (if allowed by package publishing access)
Session token	Can stage	2FA prompt
Trust token (OIDC)	Can stage (if allowed)	Can publish (if allowed)

Trust Relationship Permissions#

With staged publishing, trust relationships now support granular command permissions. Shortlived tokens issued through trust relationships can only be used with npm stage publish and npm publish. Shortlived tokens cannot run npm stage subcommands.

npm trust <provider> supports --allow-publish and --allow-stage-publish to control which commands are available through each trust relationship.

Best Practices#

Note: The addition of staged publishing does not make your account or org more secure. Maintainers must still use the best practices listed below.

1. Delete Granular Access Tokens (GAT) with bypass 2FA enabled. Now with staged publishing, we've eliminated the need for a GAT token that can bypass 2FA. We encourage you to delete all your tokens with bypass enabled and switch to using a trust relationship in your automated workflows, or create a GAT without bypass and use npm stage publish.

2. Disallow tokens from publishing at the package level. All packages have their own access controls under "package access" allowing packages to be published with bypass tokens, which is no longer a necessity. We encourage you to select "Require two-factor authentication and disallow tokens (recommended)" for all your packages on the package access page.

3. Configure trust relationship permissions to prevent npm publish. We encourage you to only enable npm stage publish on your trust relationships and disable npm publish.

Configuration#

See Also#

• npm publish
• npm unpublish
• npm trust