GitHub has rolled out new controls for npm to improve the security of the software supply chain, giving maintainers the ability to explicitly approve a release prior to the packages becoming publicly available for installation. Called staged publishing, the feature is now generally available on npm. It mandates that a human maintainer pass a two-factor authentication (2FA) challenge to approve a package before it is pushed to the npmjs[.]com. "Instead of a direct publish that immediately makes a package version available to consumers, the prebuilt tarball is uploaded to a stage queue where a maintainer must explicitly approve it before it becomes installable," GitHub said. The Microsoft-owned subsidiary said the change ensures "proof of presence" for every publish, including those that come from non-interactive CI/CD workflows and trusted publishing with OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication. Before using staged publishing, package maintainers have to meet the following criteria - Developers can use the command "npm stage publish" from the root directory of the package to submit it to a staging area. To use this command, it's essential to update to npm CLI 11.15.0 or newer. For optimal protection, GitHub is recommending that staged publishing be paired with trusted publishing using OIDC. A second update focused on npm relates to the introduction of three new install source flags alongside the existing -allow-git flag - The flags allow developers to "apply the same explicit-allowlist approach to every non-registry install source," GitHub said.