out with the newww and in with the www: an update on the npm website

From its inception, npm has been keenly focused on open source values. As we’ve grown as a company, however, we’ve learned the important lesson that making source code available under an open license is the bare minimum for open source software. To take it even further, we’ve also learned that “open source” doesn’t necessarily mean community-driven. With these insights in mind, the web team has decided to make some changes to the community interface of npm’s website — with the goal of creating a more efficient and effective experience for everyone involved.

Summary

• npm/newww is being retired and made private
• npm/www has been created for new issues and release notes

Sunsetting npm/newww

As you may (or may not!) have noticed, the repo that used to home npm’s website (npm/newww) isn’t in sync with the production website (http://www.npmjs.com).

A few months back, the team made the executive decision to close source the npm website. There were several reasons for this:

• Running the npm website locally was/still is very difficult (even for npm members!) due to a dependency on private API endpoints
• Open source tier Travis builds were holding back development pace

This was a super tough call, and there were strong arguments from both sides. In the end, though, the team reached a unified understanding that this was both the best call for the company and for the community. The repo will be officially shutting down tomorrow, Friday, July 29, 2016.

One of the things we’re aware of is that many in the Node community were using the website as an example repo for using the Hapi framework. While we’re completely flattered by this, we honestly don’t believe the codebase is currently in a state to serve that role — it’s a katamari of many practices over many years rolled into one right now!

That being said, we do care about sharing our work with the world, and intend to and are excited to publish many of the website components as packages that will be open sourced and reusable.

Introducing npm/www

In place of the npm/newww repo, we’ve created npm/www! The goals of this repo are to give the community a place to:

• File issues about display and performance bugs on the website
• Request new features of the website
• Publish release notes about the website

While the source code for the website will no longer be available, the hope is that this new repo can be a more effective way to organize and respond to the needs the community has. We’re super excited to hear your thoughts, questions, and concerns — head over to npm/www now so we can start collaborating!