Registry setup installation step for NPM packages misleading/inconsistent with docs
Problem to solve
What product or feature(s) affected?
GitLab
What docs or doc section affected? Include links or paths.
When you push a NPM package to your package registry, you can click on your particular package to get more details. This takes you to https://gitlab.com/<group>/<project>/-/packages/<packageId>
For NPM packages this page also includes the step Registry setup. Currently this has the step echo @<group>:registry=https://gitlab.com/api/v4/packages/npm/ >> .npmrc
. Although this works fine for instance level endpoint, when you have a project-level package this causes errors with authentication (as the url has to be of the format https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/<your_project_id>/packages/npm/
.
The distinction between instance-level and project-level npm endpoint are hinted in the documentation found here:- https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/packages/npm_registry/index.html#authenticate-with-a-personal-access-token-or-deploy-token, although given that the heading is about authentication is a bit had to pick up (particularly if you are new to gitlab).
Suggested change
Adding registry setup steps for project level packages on the details page (https://gitlab.com/<group>/<project>/-/packages/<packageId>
), and then pointing to the documentation to help people distinguish the difference.
Alternatively, if there is a easy way to auto detect whether its a instance level, or a project level endpoint, adding the right command automatically
Who can address the issue
If all is required is to update the documentation on the package detail page, a first-time contributor could try tackle this.