deploy-npm — Full release workflow

Degree of freedom: MIXED. Semver/changeset judgment [HIGH freedom]; git/gh/npm publish steps [LOW freedom — run exactly]. Never pnpm publish locally when the repo uses Trusted Publisher.

How to reason

1. Observe — branch, dirty tree, open PRs, pending changesets, release.yml trigger
2. Interpret — is this a changeset-ready release or a no-op?
3. Classify — proceed / stop-and-ask (dirty tree, conflicting PRs, no changeset)
4. Severity — publishing the wrong bump or skipping verify is a user-facing break

Worked example

Observe: feature PR green; one minor changeset; Version PR opened by the bot; required checks never fired.
Interpret: GitHub anti-loop suppressed CI on the bot branch.
Classify: empty-commit to trigger CI (Phase 4), then merge Version PR.
Verify: npm view shows the new version; do not publish from the laptop.

Self-critique before reporting

• Phase order — no publish before version PR + green CI
• Verify — npm view (and GH Release) ran after publish, not assumed
• No local publish — Trusted Publisher path only
• Right owner — running app deploy → workflow-ship-and-observe

This skill is opinionated for repos that use:

• pnpm + turbo monorepo
• @changesets/cli + @changesets/action for versioning and changelog generation
• A GitHub Actions workflow named Release (.github/workflows/release.yml) that runs changeset version + changeset publish on push to master
• npm Trusted Publisher (OIDC) with provenance — no long-lived NPM_TOKEN
• step-security/harden-runner blocking some runner writes (notably git tag refs)

Adapt the package / branch / workflow names if the target repo differs, but keep the phase order — every phase blocks on the previous one.

Quick Start

Copy this checklist into the conversation and tick boxes as you go:

Release progress:
- [ ] Phase 0: Discover repo state (branch, open PRs, pending changesets)
- [ ] Phase 1: Author / verify the changeset
- [ ] Phase 2: Green the feature PR
- [ ] Phase 3: Merge feature PR to master
- [ ] Phase 4: Wait for & green the changesets Version PR
- [ ] Phase 5: Merge Version PR → trigger publish
- [ ] Phase 6: Handle github-actions[bot] anti-loop if push trigger didn't fire
- [ ] Phase 7: Verify on npm (npm view) and on GitHub Releases
- [ ] Phase 8: Create per-package GitHub Release notes if harden-runner blocked tags

Phase 0 — Discover repo state

Before doing anything destructive, understand what's open:

cd <repo-root>

# Current branch + dirty state
git status --short
git log --oneline -5

# Open PRs
gh pr list --state open --json number,title,headRefName

# Pending changesets (anything not yet versioned)
ls .changeset/*.md 2>/dev/null | grep -v README

# Release workflow definition (so you know the trigger semantics)
cat .github/workflows/release.yml | head -80

Confirm with the user before continuing if:

• There are uncommitted local changes (git status is non-empty)
• More than one feature PR is open and they conflict
• No changesets exist (changeset publish would be a no-op)

Phase 1 — Author / verify the changeset

A changeset is a markdown file under .changeset/ with a YAML preamble listing affected packages + bump type:

---
'@scope/web': minor
'@scope/cli': minor
'@scope/node': patch
---

One-paragraph summary of what users get.

## @scope/web
- Feature bullet 1
- Feature bullet 2

## @scope/cli
- ...

Bump rules (follow semver strictly):

• major — breaking API change
• minor — additive feature, no breakage
• patch — bug fix only, no API surface change

Common mistake: leaving sibling packages out when their consumer was bumped. If @scope/react re-exports @scope/core and core got a feature, react typically needs at least a patch so users on the new core get a fresh react tarball.

Run pnpm changeset status (or npx changeset status) to preview the version graph before pushing.

Phase 2 — Green the feature PR

Push the branch, open the PR, then iterate on CI until every required check is green:

git push -u origin <branch>
gh pr create --title "..." --body "..."

# Poll status
gh pr checks <pr-number>

# Watch a specific failing job to its conclusion
gh run watch <run-id> --exit-status

Typical fix loops (be ready for these):

1. Build & Test fails on test → run the failing test locally: pnpm --filter <pkg> test; fix; commit; push.
2. typecheck fails but tests pass → some helper type leaked. Look for inline import('...') type annotations and switch to named import type { X } from '...' (eslint rule @typescript-eslint/consistent-type-imports).
3. lint fails on next lint in any app on Next.js ≥ 15.5 → next lint was removed. Replace with eslint . --ext .ts,.tsx in package.json and add eslint + the workspace eslint-config to devDependencies.
4. lint fails on // eslint-disable-next-line unknown-rule under ESLint 10 → remove the directive. ESLint 10 treats unknown-rule disables as errors.
5. Check bundle sizes fails → bump the limit in the package's size-limit config in package.json, but only after confirming the growth is from intentional new code (run pnpm --filter <pkg> exec size-limit --why locally).
6. Docs build (Nextra) fails with Zod expected nonoptional, received undefined → at children → patch nextra-theme-docs/dist/schemas.js to mark children: reactNode.optional() in LayoutPropsSchema, register the patch in root package.json pnpm.patchedDependencies.
7. MDX build error like "import statement after heading" → move every import ... from '...' to the top of the MDX file, before headings or JSX.

CodeQL informational findings: The CodeQL (GitHub Advanced Security) summary check often shows alerts that pre-existed but get re-flagged because the PR is large. The CodeQL (javascript-typescript) workflow run itself is what actually gates merge. Don't conflate the two.

Phase 3 — Merge feature PR to master

gh pr merge <pr-number> --squash --admin --subject "release: <one-line summary>"

--admin is needed if the user has admin rights and a required status check is stuck (e.g., CodeQL alert summary showing failure when the actual scan workflow passed).

Immediately after merge, the Release workflow fires on push to master. Watch it:

sleep 10
gh run list --branch master --workflow Release --limit 1
gh run watch <run-id> --exit-status

This first run will either:

• Open the changesets "Version Packages" PR (most common — leaves your changes unpublished until you merge it), OR
• Publish directly (only if changeset version was already run on the merged branch)

If you see a new PR titled chore: version packages from app/github-actions, continue to Phase 4.

Phase 4 — Wait for & green the changesets Version PR

gh pr list --state open --json number,title,headRefName --jq '.[] | select(.headRefName == "changeset-release/master")'

Critical gotcha: workflows triggered by github-actions[bot] commits are suppressed by GitHub's anti-loop protection. The Version PR will exist with mergeStateStatus: BLOCKED because required checks (e.g., Build & Test) never fired.

Trigger CI manually with an empty commit on the bot's branch:

git fetch origin changeset-release/master
git checkout changeset-release/master
git commit --allow-empty -m "chore: trigger CI for version packages PR"
git push origin changeset-release/master
git checkout - # back to your previous branch

sleep 10
gh run list --branch changeset-release/master --limit 3
gh run watch <new-run-id> --exit-status

Phase 5 — Merge Version PR → trigger publish

Once CI is green:

gh pr merge <version-pr-number> --squash --admin --subject "chore: version packages (release <month> <year>)"

Wait ~10 seconds, then check whether the Release workflow auto-fired:

sleep 10
gh run list --branch master --workflow Release --limit 2

Phase 6 — Handle the github-actions[bot] anti-loop

If the latest Release run timestamp on master is older than the Version PR merge time, the same anti-loop problem suppressed the publish trigger (squash-merge attributed to github-actions[bot] doesn't fire downstream workflows).

The published release.yml should declare workflow_dispatch: for exactly this case. Dispatch it manually:

gh workflow run Release --ref master
sleep 8
gh run list --workflow Release --branch master --limit 1
gh run watch <new-run-id> --exit-status

Watch for the "Version & Publish" job. Look in its log for either:

• 🦋 info publishing @scope/[email protected] (success)
• 🦋 warn @scope/pkg is not being published because version x.y.z is already published on npm (means an earlier run already shipped it — fine)
• 404 Not Found - "<pkg>@<version>" is not in this registry (this is npm's misleading error for OIDC trusted-publisher mismatch, not a missing package — see "OIDC gotcha" below)

Phase 7 — Verify on npm + GitHub Releases

Confirm every package landed on the public registry:

for pkg in <space-separated-package-names>; do
 echo -n "$pkg: "
 npm view "$pkg" version dist-tags.latest 2>&1 | tr '\n' ' '
 echo
done

Each line should print version = 'x.y.z' dist-tags.latest = 'x.y.z'.

Check GitHub Releases:

gh release list --limit 10
gh api repos/<owner>/<repo>/releases/latest --jq '.tag_name,.name,.html_url'

The Latest badge should be on the new release. If it's on the wrong one:

gh release edit <correct-tag> --latest

Phase 8 — Manual GitHub Releases when harden-runner blocks tags

If step-security/harden-runner blocks the runner from writing .git/refs/tags/*.lock (you'll see [Source code overwritten] lines in the post-run log), changesets/action will fail to push tags, which means no GitHub Release pages are created even though npm publish succeeded.

Recover by creating tags + releases via the GitHub API targeting the current master SHA:

# Get the published master SHA from the Version PR's merge commit
MASTER_SHA=$(gh api repos/<owner>/<repo>/commits/master --jq '.sha')

# Create each tag
for tag in "[email protected]" "@scope/[email protected]" "@scope/[email protected]" ...; do
 gh api -X POST repos/<owner>/<repo>/git/refs \
 -f ref="refs/tags/$tag" \
 -f sha="$MASTER_SHA"
done

# Write the umbrella release notes once
cat > /tmp/release-notes.md <<'EOF'
## <Project> — <Month Year> release

[1-paragraph high-level summary]

## What's published to npm

| Package | New version |
|---------|-------------|
| `main-pkg` | `x.y.z` |
| `@scope/cli` | `x.y.z` |
...

## Highlights

### Feature group 1
- bullet
- bullet

[etc — pull straight from the changeset markdown]

## Migration notes

[breaking changes with diff blocks]

## Install

\`\`\`bash
npm install @scope/[email protected] @scope/[email protected]
\`\`\`
EOF

# Create the umbrella release (marked Latest)
gh release create "[email protected]" \
 --title "<Project> — <Month Year> release (<3-word highlight>)" \
 --notes-file /tmp/release-notes.md \
 --latest --target master

# Create per-package release stubs that link back
for tag in "@scope/[email protected]" "@scope/[email protected]" ...; do
 gh release create "$tag" --title "$tag" \
 --notes "Part of the [<Project> <Month Year> release](https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>/releases/tag/main-pkg%40x.y.z). See the umbrella release for full notes.

\`\`\`bash
npm install $tag
\`\`\`" \
 --target master
done

# Clean up
rm /tmp/release-notes.md

Important: --latest only applies to the most recent gh release create / gh release edit invocation. After creating the per-package stubs, re-mark the umbrella as latest:

gh release edit "[email protected]" --latest

OIDC Trusted-Publisher gotchas

If changeset publish fails with 404 Not Found - "<pkg>@<version>" is not in this registry and your provenance config is on, the issue is almost always:

1. Old npm CLI: setup-node@v4 with node-version: 22 ships npm 10, which has a broken OIDC handshake. Bump node-version: 24 in the Release workflow — Node 24 ships npm 11.5+ with the fix.
2. Missing Trusted Publisher rule: every publishable package needs a rule on npmjs.com → Package → Settings → Trusted Publishers pointing at exactly <owner>/<repo>/.github/workflows/release.yml on branch master.
3. Branch mismatch: the workflow runs on release/feature but the Trusted Publisher rule pins master. Either restrict workflow to master or add a rule per branch.

Anti-patterns to avoid

1. **Editing .changeset/*.md after changeset version ran** — those files are deleted by version and re-creating them won't re-bump. Make a new changeset for follow-up changes.
2. Force-pushing the changesets-release/master bot branch — the bot owns it and will overwrite next push to master. Empty commits are fine; rewrites are not.
3. Manually editing CHANGELOG.md — Changesets owns it. Edit the changeset markdown before version, or write a follow-up changeset.
4. Publishing without --admin to bypass CodeQL alert summary — only acceptable when the workflow CodeQL (javascript-typescript) actually passed and you've reviewed the alerts to confirm they're informational. Document the call in the umbrella release notes under "Known follow-ups".
5. Running pnpm publish locally — circumvents provenance, breaks Trusted Publisher chain. Always go through the workflow.

Verification commands (cheat sheet)

# Did npm get the new version?
npm view <pkg> version

# Is the umbrella GH release marked Latest?
gh api repos/<owner>/<repo>/releases/latest --jq '.tag_name'

# Are all expected tags pushed?
git ls-remote --tags origin | grep -E '<pkg>@x\.y\.z'

# Did any workflow fail in the release window?
gh run list --branch master --created ">$(date -u -d '1 hour ago' +%FT%TZ)" --json conclusion,name | jq

# What did the Version & Publish step actually publish?
gh run view <run-id> --log | grep -E "🦋.*info publishing|warn.*already published"

When to deviate from this skill

• Repo doesn't use Changesets → use whatever it uses (semantic-release, manual npm version + tag, release-please), but keep Phases 0/2/7 verbatim.
• Repo publishes a single package, not a monorepo → skip Phase 8's per-package stubs.
• Repo doesn't use OIDC Trusted Publisher → drop the OIDC gotchas section, but never add a long-lived NPM_TOKEN without flagging the security trade-off to the user first.

When in doubt, prefer the workflow-dispatch path (Phase 6) over re-merging or rewriting history — workflow_dispatch is idempotent for changeset publish (already-published versions become warnings, not errors).

Reference implementation: For an annotated example of this workflow applied to a real monorepo (Changesets + OIDC + per-package GitHub Releases), see [references/example-mushi-mushi.md](references/example-mushi-mushi.md).