But that’s the person I think is mandatory.
You’re saying that whatever is in the source repository should be uploaded in the npm index, right? If the code is tagged as release, the built artifact is automatically uploaded to npm. Is that what you’re proposing?
That exactly what got PostHog into this position. The keys to publish to npm were available to an engineer or GitHub to push a malware build into npm automatically. This isn’t a technical issue… it’s a process issue. I don’t see the problem as that the keys were misused. I see the problem as that it was possible to misuse the keys at all. Why do you need that process to be automatic? How often are you pushing new updates?
I would argue that those npm assets/libraries are your work product. That is what your customer needs to use your service. It is a published product from your company. It is too important to allow a new version to be published out to the public without a human in the loop to approve it.
When you have a fully automatic publishing cycle, you’re trading security for convenience. It’s all about how much risk you’re willing to accept. For me, that’s too much of a risk to the reputation to the company. I also think the balance shifts if you’re talking about purely internal assets, having completely automatic ci/cd makes perfect sense for most companies. For me, it is about who is hurt if there is an issue (and you should expect for there to be an issue).
Putting a person in the loop for releasing a product is one way to solve this. It’s not perfect, but at the moment, I think it’s the most secure (for the public).