"Permission not_found: owner not found": I cannot publish private package to GitHub Packages under new organization

[alfonsomartinde]

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Hi!,
I am unable to publish a private npm package to GitHub Packages under a newly created organization, and I consistently receive the following error when running npm publish --registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com/:

403 Forbidden - PUT https://npm.pkg.github.com/@emanager.com%2ffrontend - Permission not_found: owner not found

I checked authentication with whoami:

npm whoami --registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com

which returns my username (alfonsomartinde), confirming authentication.

Details of my setup and what I have tried:

• The organization is called emanager.com, created a few hours ago.
• The repository frontend exists under the organization (emanager.com/frontend) and is private.
• My user (alfonsomartinde) is listed as Owner and Admin in the organization.
• I have generated a Classic Personal Access Token with all possible permissions (repo, write:packages, read:packages), and also tried with a Fine-grained token with explicit access to the repository and the same permissions.

My .npmrc is configured as follows:

@emanager.com:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com/
//npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken=ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I also tried it creating .npmrc from a GitHub Action

      - name: Create .npmrc file
        run: |
          echo "@emanager.com:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com" > .npmrc
          echo "//npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken=${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}" >> .npmrc
          cat .npmrc

where GITHUB_TOKEN has the following permissions: (from the log)

GITHUB_TOKEN Permissions
  Actions: write
  Attestations: write
  Checks: write
  Contents: write
  Deployments: write
  Discussions: write
  Issues: write
  Metadata: read
  Models: read
  Packages: write
  Pages: write
  PullRequests: write
  RepositoryProjects: write
  SecurityEvents: write
  Statuses: write

My package.json contains:

  "name": "@emanager.com/frontend",
  "publishConfig": {
    "registry": "https://npm.pkg.github.com/"
  }

• I have tried publishing both my main package and a minimal test package, both with the same result.
• I have waited several hours in case of propagation delays.
• The organization settings allow members to create private packages.
• There are no SSO or security restrictions on my user or the organization.
• I have tried from different machines and after clearing the npm cache.
• The error persists with both Classic and Fine-grained tokens, and with both real and test packages.

Could you please help me resolve this or let me know if there is a delay or additional step required for new organizations to use GitHub Packages?

Thank you very much for your help.
Best regards,
Alfonso

[LqhResearch]

Hi @alfonsomartinde,

📌 Root Cause

From the error message:

403 Forbidden - PUT https://npm.pkg.github.com/@emanager.com%2ffrontend - Permission not_found: owner not found

It seems the issue lies in the scoped package name:

"name": "@emanager.com/frontend"

GitHub does not support dots in organization/package scope names for GitHub Packages. In your case, the scope @emanager.com is being interpreted incorrectly by the npm registry (the %2f encoding suggests confusion between the org and package name).

✅ Solution

You need to rename the package scope to match the GitHub org exactly — without dots (.).

So, you have two options:

---

Option 1: Rename your GitHub organization

Rename the organization from emanager.com → emanager-com or emanager, then update your package.json:

"name": "@emanager/frontend"

And in your .npmrc:

@emanager:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com/
//npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken=ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

---

Option 2: Publish under a personal scope (for testing)

If you can't rename the org right now, try publishing under your personal scope first to confirm everything else is working:

"name": "@alfonsomartinde/frontend"

With .npmrc:

@alfonsomartinde:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com/
//npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken=ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I hope this resolves your issue. Let me know if you need help renaming the org or migrating package names — happy to help!

Best regards,
LqhResearch

[alfonsomartinde]

Thank you so much!
That was it