[BUG] unable to publish when using publishConfig option - ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE

[waitem]

Current Behavior:

When running npm publish the following error appears:

npm ERR! code ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE
npm ERR! The "path" argument must be of type string. Received undefined

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/xx/.npm/_logs/2021-03-06T09_10_43_193Z-debug.log

The debug trace shows:

23 verbose stack TypeError [ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE]: The "path" argument must be of type string. Received undefined
23 verbose stack     at validateString (internal/validators.js:124:11)
23 verbose stack     at join (path.js:1039:7)
23 verbose stack     at flatten (/home/xx/.nvm/versions/node/v14.16.0/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/flat-options.js:50:10)
23 verbose stack     at Publish.publishConfigToOpts (/home/xx/.nvm/versions/node/v14.16.0/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/publish.js:140:12)
23 verbose stack     at Publish.publish (/home/xx/.nvm/versions/node/v14.16.0/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/publish.js:58:32)

Expected Behavior:

npm publish to continue working as it did in version 6

Steps To Reproduce:

1. In this environment...
   Ubuntu 20.04
   Node 14.16.0
   npm 7.6.1
2. With this config...
   The package is configured to be published to github as per: github instrutions

package.json includes:

  "publishConfig": {
    "registry": "https://npm.pkg.github.com"
  },

3. Run npm publish
4. See error:

npm ERR! code ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE
npm ERR! The "path" argument must be of type string. Received undefined`

Environment:

Ubuntu 20.04
Node 14.16.0
npm 7.6.1

Possible cause

The issue seems to be related to changes made to the flatten() method in utils/flat-options.js
This is being called with the publishConfig which only contains a registry property.
However flatten (line 50), tries to use join() to create a path from the non-existent'cache property, hence the error (I believe).
Looking at the changes, it seems that v6 used to read the npm config for the cache value.

Workaround

My temporary workaround for this is to add a cache property to the publishConfig section, using the default cache value:

  "publishConfig": {
    "cache": "~/.npm",
    "registry": "https://npm.pkg.github.com"
  },

As others have noted, this workaround has the side-effect of creating a ~/.npm directory in the root of the project. My solution to this was then simply to add ~/.npm to .gitgnore

I guess that you could name this cache directory whatever you like. I used the default value simply to make publish work again. Note that my suggestion is purely a workaround and doesn't resolve the actual issue. Although I could see in the v7 code where the change has been made that is causing this issue, unfortunately I was unable to understand why that change was made.

[FingalP]

We had the same issue. The workaround works for now, thanks @waitem

[Fadoli]

Having the same issue here,

an other workaround (if you don't want to modify all your publish config) is to modify line 51 of flat-options.js to

cache: join(obj.cache || '~/.npm', '_cacache'),

[johnthad]

We had the same issue. The workaround works for now, thanks @waitem

This workaround does create a local directory ~ with the cache info (macOS 10.15.7).

[yellowtailfan]

I just encountered this bug, and the "cache": "~/.npm", work around caused a side-effect where the cache was written in the project folder (<project>/~/.npm) instead of my home directory. So I've reverted back to NPM 6.x instead. I'm using NPM in WSL2.

[stheine]

experienced the same in npm 7.6.3 and node v14.16.0. found a workaround by completely removing the publishConfig section from the package.json.

[lorenzogrv]

Hi everybody. I can confirm this issue too. Proposed workaround (adding publishConfig.cache) helped to step over, same side-effect as @yellowtailfan explains.

In this particular case I can't remove publishConfig from package.json as it's need to publish against gitlab's package registry, as suggested by @stheine .

Did not downgrade to 6.x to test.

I'm glad to see the pull request over this comment. Keep up the good work.

$ uname -srv
Linux 5.4.0-66-generic #74~18.04.2-Ubuntu SMP Fri Feb 5 11:17:31 UTC 2021
$ npm --version
7.6.3
$ node --version
v12.21.0

I suggest future readers "cache": "cache.npm" or the like so you don't accidentally try to rm -r ~ within your project, which may have fatal effects within your user's home

[lorenzogrv]

Hi again. Just noticed the workaround has another side-effect: It will publish with --tag set to undefined

Well, it may not be the workaround at all, but side-effect is there

Check npm show @scope/package-name to see if side-effect affects you. npm publish --tag latest works as expected, after the needed version bump.