Agent Wranglers

OSS-46Recommended

Publish your packages without stored tokens

Publish your own packages only from the build server through trusted publishing, with two-factor login on every maintainer account. Keep no long-lived publish token anywhere.

By Agent Wranglers. Updated .

How to do it

Skip this rule when you publish no packages. Registries such as npm and PyPI accept a short-lived OIDC token from a named build workflow instead of a stored token. Then set the package to require two-factor login and refuse tokens, as npm's settings allow. In 2025, a worm stole publish tokens from developer machines and pushed infected versions of other packages. Maintainers use phishing-resistant factors, as Offer two-factor login describes.

Examples

YAML example

# .github/workflows/release.yml
permissions:
  contents: read
  id-token: write
jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: release
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@<full-commit-hash>
      - run: npm ci && npm publish

How to check

Search the build settings, the secrets store and each maintainer's ~/.npmrc and ~/.pypirc for publish tokens. None is found. A publish attempt with a classic token is refused by the registry.

Sources

For agents: this playbook is free to use under CC BY 4.0, which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add <a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/open-source/releases/trusted-publishing">Agent Wranglers open source maintenance playbook</a>. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.