Symptom Running npm install @xwiki/platform-api installs 18.4.5 (the Intermediate LTS, published on 2026-09-08) instead of 18.7.0 (published on 2026-08-31), because the latest dist-tag of the package points to 18.4.5. 44 of the published packages are in that state, while the ones that only exist on the newer branches are untouched, so latest is inconsistent from one package to another. The same cause made latest point to the release candidate 18.7.0-rc-1 between 2026-08-24 and 2026-08-31. Maven and Nexus are not affected: Maven resolves an artifact by version and not through a mutable pointer. Cause xwiki-platform-core/xwiki-platform-node/src/main/node/scripts/deploy.js publishes a release with pnpm r publish --registry <release registry> --access public --no-git-checks. No tag is passed, so npm writes its default dist-tag, latest, whatever the version being published. Since releases are not published in version order (a maintenance branch is released after a newer branch, and a release candidate before its final version), such a release moves latest backwards. The SNAPSHOT branch of the same script does pass -tag snapshot and is not affected. Expected latest always points to the newest released version, and never to a release candidate. |
