[GitHub actions] release workflow failed on npm publish but package does publish successful

[lirenjie95]

Most appropriate sub-area of p5.js?

• Accessibility
• Color
• Core/Environment/Rendering
• Data
• DOM
• Events
• Image
• IO
• Math
• Typography
• Utilities
• WebGL
• Build process
• Unit testing
• Internationalization
• Friendly errors
• Other (specify if possible)

p5.js version

1.11.5 and 1.11.6

Web browser and version

N/A

Operating system

N/A

Steps to reproduce this

I recently noticed that the 1.11.5 and 1.11.6 releases failed at the npm publish step with the following error:

npm notice Publishing to https://registry.npmjs.org/ with tag latest and default access
npm error code E403
npm error 403 403 Forbidden - PUT https://registry.npmjs.org/p5 - You cannot publish over the previously published versions: 1.11.6.
npm error 403 In most cases, you or one of your dependencies are requesting
npm error 403 a package version that is forbidden by your security policy, or
npm error 403 on a server you do not have access to.
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /home/runner/.npm/_logs/2025-05-14T08_12_30_677Z-debug-0.log
Error: Error: Unable to publish p5 v1.11.6 to NPM. 

However, when I checked the package on npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/p5?activeTab=versions, both versions are already there, and the publish time is close to the release workflow time.
The 2.x.x versions were published with a similar workflow but didn't fail for recent releases.

Potential Reasons

1. The package version was manually published before running the workflow
2. The access token or secret expired recently
3. Just a false alarm (network issue or something)

Similar issue on StackOverflow

@ksen0, can you please look into this issue? It might require the membership of the p5.js repo to review the GitHub actions and/or the npm package.

[lirenjie95]

Looks it was fixed in #7810
Release workflow: https://github.com/processing/p5.js/actions/runs/15019030657/job/42203598599

[ksen0]

@lirenjie95 Thank you for keeping an eye on this as well!!