Perhaps you are lazy, and don't want to have to do the work of manually tagging a release, updating your package.json, checking if you're logged in to NPM, running npm publish, and pushing the new version to Github...

bump-n-pub does all of that for you in one command:

Usage

Usage: npx bump-n-pub increment [--github] [--dry-run] [--alpha] [--beta]

Options:
  increment    How much to bump:
                   major — breaking change
                   minor — new feature
                   patch — bug fix
                   prerelease — beta.1, beta.2, etc
  --alpha       do an alpha prerelease of the new version
  --beta        do a beta prerelease of the new version
  --github      publish to the Github registry instead of the npmjs.com one
  --dry-run     Don't actually _do_ the release, just check things out

You can publish to the Github registry instead of the npmjs.com one, by setting the $NPM_PKG_TOKEN environment variable and using the --github flag:

NPM_PKG_TOKEN=[personal access token] npx bump-n-pub minor --github

You can make a personal access token in your Github settings. It must have the write:packages scope.

Do a dry-run by appending --dry-run:

npx bump-n-pub major dry-run

Alpha and beta prereleases can be done by adding those flags. For example if the version is at 1.1.3 by running...

npx bump-n-pub minor --alpha

...the new version would be 1.2.0-alpha.0

What it does

1. Logs you in to NPM if needed
2. Makes sure your working directory is clean
3. Makes sure you can fast forward
4. Runs npm version [major | minor | etc...]
   • Creates a git tag "vX.Y.Z"
   • Updates your package.json version to "X.Y.Z"
   • Commits that change
5. [--github only] copies your auth token into an .npmrc
6. Confirms the version is correct before publishing
7. Temporarily removes the devDependencies from your package.json so package consumers don't need to install them
8. Runs npm publish
9. Tags your release as @latest or @next appropriately
10. Runs git push
11. Pushes the new tag

If any of that fails, it tries to clean up gracefully.

Todo

• [ ] Call it pre instead of prerelease? Or just presume the prerelease increment if you omit it?
• [ ] Rewind the commit & tag if publish fails
• [ ] Don't push prerelease tags to Github?
• [ ] Don't leave package.json in a bad state when trying to publish to github but not authed