node/deps/npm/doc/cli/npm-version.md

npm-version(1) -- Bump a package version

SYNOPSIS

npm version [<newversion> | major | minor | patch | build]

DESCRIPTION

Run this in a package directory to bump the version and write the new data back to the package.json file.

The newversion argument should be a valid semver string, or a valid second argument to semver.inc (one of "build", "patch", "minor", or "major"). In the second case, the existing version will be incremented by 1 in the specified field.

If run in a git repo, it will also create a version commit and tag, and fail if the repo is not clean.

If supplied with --message (shorthand: -m) config option, npm will use it as a commit message when creating a version commit. If the message config contains %s then that will be replaced with the resulting version number. For example:

npm version patch -m "Upgrade to %s for reasons"

If the sign-git-tag config is set, then the tag will be signed using the -s flag to git. Note that you must have a default GPG key set up in your git config for this to work properly. For example:

$ npm config set sign-git-tag true
$ npm version patch

You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
user: "isaacs (http://blog.izs.me/) <i@izs.me>"
2048-bit RSA key, ID 6C481CF6, created 2010-08-31

Enter passphrase:

SEE ALSO

• npm-init(1)
• package.json(5)
• semver(7)