# npm-publish

Publish a package

## SYNOPSIS

    npm publish [<tarball>|<folder>] [--tag <tag>] [--access <public|restricted>]

    Publishes '.' if no argument supplied
    Sets tag 'latest' if no --tag specified

## DESCRIPTION

Publishes a package to the registry so that it can be installed by name. All files in the package directory are included if no local `.gitignore` or `.npmignore` file exists. If both files exist and a file is ignored by `.gitignore` but not by `.npmignore` then it will be included. See `npm-developers(7)` for full details on what's included in the published package, as well as details on how the package is built.

By default npm will publish to the public registry. This can be overridden by specifying a different default registry or using a `npm-scope(7)` in the name (see `package.json(5)`).

- `<folder>`: A folder containing a package.json file

- `<tarball>`: A url or file path to a gzipped tar archive containing a single folder with a package.json file inside.

- `[--tag <tag>]` Registers the published package with the given tag, such that `npm install <name>@<tag>` will install this version. By default, `npm publish` updates and `npm install` installs the `latest` tag. See `npm-dist-tag(1)` for details about tags.

- `[--access <public|restricted>]` Tells the registry whether this package should be published as public or restricted. Only applies to scoped packages, which default to `restricted`. If you don't have a paid account, you must publish with `--access public` to publish scoped packages.

Fails if the package name and version combination already exists in the specified registry.

Once a package is published with a given name and version, that specific name and version combination can never be used again, even if it is removed with npm-unpublish(1).

For a "dry run" that does everything except actually publishing to the registry, see `npm-pack(1)`, which figures out the files to be included and packs them into a tarball to be uploaded to the registry.

## SEE ALSO

- npm-registry(7)
- npm-scope(7)
- npm-adduser(1)
- npm-owner(1)
- npm-deprecate(1)
- npm-dist-tag(1)
- npm-pack(1)