npmrc.md

title	description	ms.assetid	ms.prod	ms.technology	ms.manager	ms.author	author	ms.topic	ms.date	monikerRange
Set up your client's npmrc	Authenticating to feeds with npm in VSTS	A5364E3A-3918-4318-AAE0-430EA91AD5F1	devops	devops-artifacts	douge	elbatk	elbatk	conceptual	09/01/2017	>= tfs-2017

Set up your client's npmrc

VSTS | TFS 2018 | TFS 2017

All Package Management feeds require authentication, so you'll need to store credentials for the feed before you can install or publish packages. npm uses .npmrc configuration files to store feed URLs and credentials.

Where are my .npmrc files?

VSTS recommends using two .npmrc files:

1. One .npmrc should live at the root of your git repo adjacent to your project's package.json. It should contain a "registry" line for your feed and it should not contain credentials since it will be checked into git. You can find the registry information for your feed from the Connect to Feed button:

   1. From your Packages page, click Connect to Feed

      

   2. Copy the "registry" text:

      

2. On your development machine, you will also have a .npmrc in $home for Linux or Mac systems or $env.HOME for win systems. This .npmrc should contain credentials for all of the registries that you need to connect to. The NPM client will look at your project's .npmrc, discover the registry, and fetch matching credentials from $home/.npmrc or $env.HOME/.npmrc. Credential acquisition will be discussed in the next section.

This enables you to share project's .npmrc with the whole team while keeping your credentials secure.

Set up authentication on your dev box

You should have a project specific .npmrc containing only your Feed's registry information that you discovered from the "Connect to Feed" dialog. There should be no credentials in this file and the file itself is usually adjacent to your project's package.json.

IMPORTANT: There can only be a single "registry=" line in your .npmrc. Multiple registries are possible with scopes and our new upstream sources feature.

Windows

If you are developing on Windows, we recommend that you use vsts-npm-auth to fetch credentials and inject them into your ~/.npmrc on a periodic basis. The easiest way to set this up is to install vsts-npm-auth globally (i.e. npm install -g vsts-npm-auth) and then add a run script in your project's package.json.

"scripts": {
    "refreshVSToken" : "vsts-npm-auth -config .npmrc"
}

Linux or Mac

If you are developing on Linux or Mac, vsts-npm-auth is not supported and we recommend generating a token in the following manner for your $HOME/.npmrc

[!INCLUDE ]

Set up authentication in a build task

There are two options for setting up authentication in a build task:

• Without a task runner
• With a task runner (e.g. gulp)

Without a Task Runner

To set up npm authentication in a build task without a task runner, follow the directions below.

1. Add a build definition in VSTS under the Build and Release --> Builds hub.

   

2. Choose your source Team project, Repository, and Default branch and select Continue

3. Select Empty process at the top of the form

4. Add a task to Phase 1 of your build definition by clicking the "+":

   

5. Select Package or search for npm in the search bar, select npm and select Add:

   

6. Select the npm install task underneath Phase 1:

   

7. Browse to and select your Working folder with package.json:

   

8. Expand Custom registries and authentication, here you have a few options:

   • Registries in my .npmrc

     

     You can choose credentials to authenticate to outside of your current account/collection by setting up service endpoints.

   • Registry I select here

     

     When you choose this option, the task will create a temporary .npmrc with credentials for the registry you've selected and it will override the project's .npmrc. This is useful when you want to publish to a specific feed.

With a Task Runner (e.g. make gulp work)

When using a task runner, you'll need to add the npm Authenticate build task at the beginning of your build definition. This will inject credentials into your proejct's .npmrc and persist them for the lifespan of the build. This allows subsequent build steps to use the credentials in the .npmrc.

1. Add a build definition in VSTS under the Build and Release --> Builds hub.

   

2. Choose your source Team project, Repository, and Default branch and select Continue

3. Select Empty process at the top of the form

4. Add a task to Phase 1 of your build definition by clicking the "+":

   

5. Select Package or search for npm in the search bar, select npm Authenticate and select Add:

   

6. Select the npm Authenticate task underneath Phase 1:

   

7. Browse to and select your .npmrc file to authenticate:

   

   You can choose credentials to authenticate to outside of your current account/collection by setting up service endpoints.

8. After setting up your npm Authenticate task, you can add other build task(s) for your task runner like Gulp.

Troubleshooting vsts-npm-auth

If you receive an error like:

• Command Prompt: 'vsts-npm-auth' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
• PowerShell: vsts-npm-auth : The term 'vsts-npm-auth' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.

then it's likely that the npm modules folder is not in your path.

To fix this, re-run Node.js setup and ensure the Add to PATH option and its child options are selected for installation.

Alternatively, you can edit the PATH variable to add %APPDATA%\npm (Command Prompt) or $env:APPDATA\npm (PowerShell).