Unable to publish a package to GitHub Packages with 403 Forbidden despite having package permissions

[daniyal-debug]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

Body

Hello everyone,

I'm having trouble publishing a package to GitHub Packages. The package builds successfully, but the publish step consistently fails with a 403 Forbidden error.

Environment
GitHub Packages
npm 10.x
Node.js 20.x
GitHub Actions and local machine
Windows 11
Problem

When I run:

npm publish

or publish through GitHub Actions, I receive an error similar to:

npm ERR! code E403
npm ERR! 403 Forbidden - PUT https://npm.pkg.github.com/...
What I've checked
My GitHub account has access to the repository.
The package name and scope appear to be correct.
My Personal Access Token (PAT) includes read:packages and write:packages.
Authentication succeeds when I run npm login.

Despite this, the package cannot be published.

[AbdullahNaseemAbbasi]

A 403 Forbidden error when publishing to GitHub Packages is usually related to authentication, permissions, or package configuration rather than npm itself.

Here are a few things to verify:

Make sure your Personal Access Token includes both write:packages and read:packages. If you're publishing to a private repository, ensure it also has the appropriate repo permissions if required.
Confirm that the package scope in package.json matches your GitHub username or organization. For example:
{
"name": "@your-username/package-name"
}
Verify that your .npmrc file is configured to use the GitHub Packages registry for your package scope, for example:
@your-username:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com
If you're publishing through GitHub Actions, ensure the workflow has the necessary permissions, such as:
permissions:
contents: read
packages: write
If you recently changed your token or permissions, try generating a new Personal Access Token and updating your local credentials or GitHub Secrets.