The npm dist-tags has different behaviour on GitHub registry

[heldrida]

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Publishing a node package under a tag other than the latest is not fully supported. For example, when executing the command npm view with package name (without version) should return a list as it does in default npm registry. Github registry returns blank:

npm view <ORG>/<PACKAGE-NAME>

To replicate, let's say that you have a package.json

name: "@org/test"
version: "1.0.0"

Which is published under a hypothetical tag "custom"

npm publish --access=restricted --tag=custom

The UI will show "latest".

If you try to declare a tag via dist-tags command you'd get the warning "custom" tag already set

npm WARN dist-tag add custom is already set to version 1.0.0

Which can be verified and confirmed if

npm info @org/[email protected]

dist-tags:
custom: 1.0.0

Thus, the command dist-tags by package name is expected to return the list of tags as npm does:

npm view @org/test dist-tags

This returns blank. However if the version appended to the package name is specified a list of tags is returned

{ custom:  '1.0.0' }