since npm version creates a tag, I have an action for v* tags that will build/publish... have migrated a couple projects from travis-ci ... TFA is a bit mixed, you don't need to push to npmrc for this behavior though.
(I did post this link in direct thread, copied here)
https://gist.github.com/tracker1/fdd5ceab8f532afc3a05ab9c0bd...