This problem was found testing out the beta release for OIDC trusted publishing (now officially released) and there's some more context in that issue .
When set up to use the new OIDC trusted publishing with npm, the first release on a maintenance branch (ex. 1.32.x) fails with the following error:
[semantic-release] [@semantic-release/npm] › ℹ Adding version 1.32.0 to npm registry on dist-tag release-1.32.x
npm error code E401
npm error 401 Unauthorized - PUT https://registry.npmjs.org/-/package/<package>/dist-tags/release-1.32.x
Steps to reproduce:
Create a fresh patch maintenance branch (like 1.32.x)
Merge a fix: commit to that branch
Get to the Start step "addChannel" of plugin "@semantic-release/npm" step of the release workflow
Get the error above
Merge another commit to that branch, and get a successful release and publish
@travi already confirmed seeing the same behavior .
Opening the issue here, but it sounds like this is likely an npm issue.
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