Publishing

It is recommended that you distribute your modules and packages in a compiled form.

The official npm packages does this and delivers the files in a dist/ directory.

Using NODE_ENV=production is recommended to avoid bloat and allow for proper tree-shaking, etc.

You can distribute the sources in addition, but it all depends on the target (ES vs commonjs etc).

npm

This is a typical setup of package.json that distributes only the runtime files and metadata.

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "webpack",
    "watch": "webpack --watch",
    "test": "jest",
    "eslint": "eslint *.js",
    "stylelint": "stylelint index.scss src/**/*.scss",
    "prepublishOnly": "npm run test && npm run eslint && npm run stylelint && rm ./dist/* && NODE_ENV=production npm run build"
  },

  "files": [
    "dist/",
    "server.js",
    "metadata.json"
  ],

  // These are not required for packages
  "main": "dist/main.js",
  "style": "dist/main.css"
}

This ensures that all your tests are valid before you publish your final pack.

You can run tar tvf $(npm pack) to confirm what files are published before actually running npm publish.

git

You can also distribute via git, where everything in the npm section above still applies.

A disadvantage using git for deployment is that you have to create a specific branch to avoid users downloading unwanted files and sources.