Beyond post-install messages: npm adds support for package funding

Open Collective previously promoted the use of postinstall messages, output in the developer terminal each time someone installed a package. This practice proved controversial, and in September we stopped encouraging it. We've let package maintainers use their best judgement to stop or continue this practice as they see fit.

Since then, we've been following and supporting the npm (ie: npm/cli#187 npm/cli#246) and node (ie: nodejs/package-maintenance#220) communities to help a suitable alternative emerge.

Yesterday, npm announced that as of v6.13 they’ve added support for a brand new funding field in package.json, along with a corresponding npm fund sub-command.

After npm install, developers will now see an output with the number of packages that have defined "funding" information.

Developers can type npm fund to view more information.

We've learned over the years that package maintainers want ways to communicate how their projects are sustained without being intrusive or spammy. The 'funding' property is a great way of achieving this.

Kudos to npm for shipping this quickly, and we truly hope it'll be inspiration  for other communities to take similar steps.

If you'd like your project to show up on the funding message, you'll need to add the "funding" property to your package.json and publish a new version.  

"funding": {
  "type": "opencollective",
  "url": "https://opencollective.com/<YOUR-COLLECTIVE>"
},