Remove usage of deprecated npm install option --ignore-prepublish

[ojob]

search you tried in the issue tracker

ignore-prepublish, npm

describe your actual problem

With #3516, I reported that pipelines we run in Gitlab-CI fail on an warning+error raised by npm at installation of markdownlint-cli by pre-commit.

Reading the execution log from related issue, it appears that:

• npm raises a warning about the deprecated option --ignore-prepublish.

Analysis

The --ignore-prepublish option has been introduced by pre-commit 5 years ago.

However:

• prepublish is marked as deprecated in NPM8 (but one can consider this has been the case for almost a decade).
• currently, running installation of, say, markdownlint-cli raises the following warning in Gitlab-CI: Unknown cli config "--ignore-prepublish". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.

What is requested

In pre_commit/languages/node.py, the --ignore-prepublish option shall be either removed, or activable on a per-project basis if backward compatibility is somehow necessary (I know nothing about Node applications).

Some additional thoughts, here since I could find no other relevant place

I understand that non-actionable issues shall be closed. But closing #3516 without any way to improve/clarify the request or even only to comment is rude, considering preparation of such an issue takes time and tries to bring value to this project. Please consider allowing some delay before disallowing comments.

pre-commit --version

4.2.0

[asottile]

I understand that non-actionable issues shall be closed. But closing #3516 without any way to improve/clarify the request or even only to comment is rude, considering preparation of such an issue takes time and tries to bring value to this project. Please consider allowing some delay before disallowing comments.

I mean your output literally said "report this to npm" and you decided to open the issue here? your issue was off topic to begin with, unhelpful (and far from "bringing value to the project"), and did not deserve further discussion.

yes I locked it there was nothing more to discuss if you think that's rude you may want to adjust your expectations of what you're entitled to in open source

[ojob]

The comment at the bottom is not about the technical content of the first issue I opened today. It only proposes a way to handle exchange between humans, in a way that seems acceptable to me, hoping this would be a shared point of view.

This issue is about updating pre-commit call to npm install, by removing a deprecated option.

[asottile]

This issue is about updating pre-commit call to npm install, by removing a deprecated option.

then don't clutter this issue with your unnecessary commentary

[ojob]

After npm logs retrieval, it appears that the npm error is not raised due to the highlighted warning, which was not obvious from the recorder stderr. So I updated the issue description to be more specific.

[pyxelr]

I am having the same issue as the author:

root in repo on main [!] via 🐍 v3.9.21
❯ pre-commit run --all-files
[INFO] Initializing environment for https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks.
[WARNING] repo `https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks` uses deprecated stage names (commit, push) which will be removed in a future version.  Hint: often `pre-commit autoupdate --repo https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks` will fix this.  if it does not -- consider reporting an issue to that repo.
(...)
[INFO] Initializing environment for https://github.com/adrienverge/yamllint.git.
[INFO] Initializing environment for https://github.com/igorshubovych/markdownlint-cli.
(...)
[INFO] Installing environment for https://github.com/adrienverge/yamllint.git.
[INFO] Once installed this environment will be reused.
[INFO] This may take a few minutes...
[INFO] Installing environment for https://github.com/igorshubovych/markdownlint-cli.
[INFO] Once installed this environment will be reused.
[INFO] This may take a few minutes...
An unexpected error has occurred: CalledProcessError: command: ('/root/.cache/pre-commit/repo2uw4bt9b/node_env-default/bin/node', '/root/.cache/pre-commit/repo2uw4bt9b/node_env-default/bin/npm', 'install', '--include=dev', '--include=prod', '--ignore-prepublish', '--no-progress', '--no-save')
return code: 1
stdout: (none)
stderr:
    npm warn Unknown cli config "--ignore-prepublish". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.
    npm error cannot set sizeCalculation without setting maxSize or maxEntrySize
    npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /root/.npm/_logs/2025-10-24T13_17_25_284Z-debug-0.log
Check the log at /root/.cache/pre-commit/pre-commit.log

This can be fixed, when I specify the language_version in .pre-commit-config.yaml:

  - repo: https://github.com/igorshubovych/markdownlint-cli
    rev: v0.45.0
    hooks:
      - id: markdownlint
        args: [--ignore, CHANGELOG.md]
        language_version: "20.18.1"  # Pin to Node.js LTS version to avoid npm 11.6.2 bug

[asottile]

you're seeing a warning like the original post. but that is just a warning. warnings are not fatal.