Initiative: `v8.x`

[darcyclarke]

Timeline:

• Alpha: August 2021
• Generally Available: September 2021
• End of Life: Mid 2022

Goals

• Low friction from 7 -> 8
• Reduce maintenance burden
• Align release schedules better with Node Project
• Update deps which are dropping support for unsupported nodes

Breaking Changes:

• Drop support for node@10
• Drop programmatic API (ie. no more require('npm'))
• Re-think the dist-tags we use (ie. drop lts based on: https://github.com/npm/cli/wiki/Support-Policy)

Features:

• chore(set-script): Deprecate & warn for npm set-script #494
• chore(birthday): Deprecate & warn for npm birthday #495
• chore(config): Deprecate & warn for --global (--location=global) #496
• chore(config): Deprecate & warn for --local #497
• chore(config): Deprecate & warn for sso-type #498
• feat(workspaces): Add alias for --include-workspace-root (ex. --iwr) #499
• feat(install): Introduce new "tree mutated" lifecycle event #493
• feat(query): Add command alongside package selector syntax #463
• feat(config): remove deprecation warning for auth-type #512
• feat(adduser): add deprecation warning #513
• feat(access): Deprecate & warn for subcommands #500
• feat(explain): Deprecate & warn for npm explain <path> #514
• feat(config): Deprecate & warn on bare _auth & _authToken #502