Preserve latest tag when publishing historical typings

[Copilot]

Publishing changes shared by multiple versions could leave npm’s latest tag pointing to the last historical version published.

• Make publication intent explicit

  • Require every NpmPublishClient.publish call to specify a tag.
  • Publish current typings as latest, historical typings as old-version, and the registry as next.

• Protect latest

  • Remove the temporary historical tag after publication.
  • Treat cleanup failure as non-fatal while retaining the defensive latest correction.

await client.publish(packageDir, packageJson, pkg.isLatest ? "latest" : "old-version", dry, log);

• Regression coverage
  • Verify current and historical versions use their intended tags.
  • Verify temporary-tag cleanup ordering and failure handling.

[Jake Bailey (jakebailey)]

Copilot what happens to preexisting broken packages? See the node package on the registry

[Copilot]

Copilot what happens to preexisting broken packages? See the node package on the registry

They are not repaired by the normal publisher unless another historical version is published. The existing weekly update-ts-version-tags workflow resets latest for every package, so it will repair @types/node after this merges; it can also be manually dispatched against main to fix Node immediately rather than waiting until Sunday.

[Jake Bailey (jakebailey)]

Copilot changesets should not mention private packages, and ci is failing formatting

[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

The explicit tag handling and cleanup behavior are consistent, complete, and adequately covered by regression tests.

Pull request overview

Ensures historical typings no longer overwrite npm’s latest tag.

Changes:

• Requires explicit publication tags.
• Uses latest, old-version, and next appropriately.
• Removes temporary historical tags with non-fatal cleanup handling and regression tests.

File summaries

File	Description
packages/utils/src/npm.ts	Adds explicit publish tags and tag removal support.
packages/publisher/src/lib/package-publisher.ts	Tags current and historical typings appropriately.
packages/publisher/src/publish-registry.ts	Explicitly publishes the registry under next.
packages/publisher/test/package-publisher.test.ts	Tests tagging, cleanup ordering, and cleanup failures.
.changeset/tidy-tags-rest.md	Records patch releases.

Review details

• Files reviewed: 5/5 changed files
• Comments generated: 0
• Review effort level: Balanced

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[Copilot]

Copilot changesets should not mention private packages, and ci is failing formatting

Fixed in 8acba42: the changeset now includes only public @definitelytyped/utils, and the publisher test passes the repository Prettier check.