Can npm help contact the owner of nitro-modules about a voluntary transfer?

[mrousavy]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

Body

Hi npm team,

I'm Marc, the creator of Nitro, an actively maintained project for building native modules for React Native. It's published as react-native-nitro-modules and had about 8.5 million npm downloads between September 13 and October 12.

I'd love to use the shorter nitro-modules name and ask its owner whether they'd be willing to transfer it. The package metadata lists nitro_ as its sole maintainer and May 14, 2018 as its last publication date. The public email is info@nitroh.io, but that domain no longer resolves. I couldn't find another public email in their npm packages or Git history.

I opened an issue asking the owner today, October 15, and have also submitted a request through npm Support.

I understand that inactivity alone isn't grounds for reassigning a package. Can npm forward a voluntary-transfer inquiry to an owner's registered contact address, if a working one is available? Has anyone used a supported process for this when the public email no longer works?

Thanks!
Marc

[zunzunn]

You can check npm’s official ⁠package name dispute policy and ⁠support page for guidance.

I’d recommend waiting for npm Support’s response and explicitly asking whether they can forward a voluntary transfer request to the owner’s registered email without disclosing their private contact details.

Good luck with Nitro!

[nipun-1234]

Hi Marc,

You've already taken the right steps by contacting the package owner and npm Support.

I’d recommend continuing through npm’s official support channel and asking whether they can forward a voluntary transfer request to the current maintainer without disclosing their private contact information.

You can also check npm’s official package name dispute and ownership policies to understand what options are available. Since inactivity alone may not justify transferring a package, it’s best to frame this as a request to contact the owner rather than a request to claim the name.

If the maintainer cannot be reached, npm Support is the appropriate place to ask what alternatives, if any, are available. Keep your existing correspondence and the public evidence of your attempts to contact the owner.

Hope you can get in touch with them and find a solution!

Official resource: https://www.npmjs.com/support

[BenkhiraAhmedBaderEddine1]

Hi Marc, I’m not on the npm team, so I can’t say what Support will do. Here is what I know and what I’d suggest.

What the policy covers

Inactivity alone isn’t a reason to reassign a package, as you noted. The older dispute process had an “adopt an abandoned package” route, but npm paused it in 2021 after a package was handed over that turned out not to be abandoned. I couldn’t find a current replacement, so please check the latest dispute policy on docs.npmjs.com.
A transfer the owner agrees to is the only clean path. The owner runs npm owner add nitro-modules, or npm does it with their consent.

Your question about forwarding to the registered email

The email shown on the package page is often not the account’s registered address (the account email is private). Past npm guidance was to email the owner and cc support, and it didn’t promise that Support would forward on your behalf.
Only npm staff can say whether they’ll forward a voluntary-transfer inquiry to the registered address. That’s a good question to put directly in your Support ticket, and a staff reply here would settle it for everyone.

Things you can still try

Ask in the ticket for a forward only. Ask them to pass on your message and leave the decision to the owner. That avoids asking them to judge abandonment.
Look for other contact routes. Check the GitHub profile of nitro24 (public email, linked sites, social accounts) and the commit author emails in the repo history, including older commits and forks.
Document your attempts. Keep the issue link, the date, and the Support ticket number. That record helps if npm ever reviews the case.
Don’t take over the dead domain. Registering nitroh.io to receive mail or password resets would be account takeover and against npm’s terms. I’d stay well away from it.

[bytesbydev]

I think contacting npm Support is the right approach here. Since the goal is a voluntary transfer, it would be helpful if npm could forward the request to the current owner's registered email, if that's possible.

Inactivity alone shouldn't mean a package name is up for grabs, so reaching out to the owner first makes sense. Hopefully, npm can suggest a supported way to handle this when the public contact details are no longer working.

Thank you