Use NPM for publishing packages instead of Lerna (#1581)

## Motivation for the change, related issues

Every few months there's a problem with publishing packages via Lerna,
e.g. here's the latest one:

#1572

Debugging those issues takes a lot of time and typically there are no
useful resources out there.

This PR limits the use of Lerna to bumping the packages version in the
repo and tagging the updated code.

## Implementation details

Instead of using `lerna publish`, we run a simple, custom bash script.

## Testing Instructions (or ideally a Blueprint)

Merge and run. It seems to be working locally and I don't see any other
way of testing it in GitHub.

.github/workflows/publish-npm-packages.yml

@@ -52,4 +52,4 @@ jobs:
             # Version bump, release, tag a new version on GitHub
             - name: Release new version of NPM packages
               shell: bash
-              run: npx [email protected] publish ${{ inputs.version_bump }} --yes --no-private --loglevel=verbose --dist-tag=${{ inputs.dist_tag }}
+              run: npm run release:${{ inputs.version_bump }} -- --dist-tag=${{ inputs.dist_tag }}

package.json

@@ -13,9 +13,9 @@
 		"format": "nx format",
 		"format:uncommitted": "nx format --fix --parallel --uncommitted",
 		"lint": "nx run-many --all --target=lint",
-		"prepublishOnly": "npm run build",
 		"mindmap": "cd packages/meta/src/mindmap/v2 && php -S 127.0.0.1:5269",
 		"preview": "nx preview playground-website",
+		"publish-to-npm": "bash ./packages/meta/bin/publish-packages.sh",
 		"recompile:php:web": "nx recompile-php:light:all php-wasm-web && nx recompile-php:kitchen-sink:all php-wasm-web ",
 		"recompile:php:web:light": "nx recompile-php:light:all php-wasm-web ",
 		"recompile:php:web:light:7.0": "nx recompile-php:light php-wasm-web --PHP_VERSION=7.0",
@@ -47,7 +47,9 @@
 		"recompile:php:node:8.1": "nx recompile-php php-wasm-node --PHP_VERSION=8.1",
 		"recompile:php:node:8.2": "nx recompile-php php-wasm-node --PHP_VERSION=8.2",
 		"recompile:php:node:8.3": "nx recompile-php php-wasm-node --PHP_VERSION=8.3",
-		"release": "lerna publish patch --yes --no-private --loglevel=verbose",
+		"release:patch": "npx lerna version patch --no-private --force-publish --yes && npm run build && npm run publish-to-npm",
+		"release:minor": "npx lerna version minor --no-private --force-publish --yes && npm run build && npm run publish-to-npm",
+		"release:major": "npx lerna version major --no-private --force-publish --yes && npm run build && npm run publish-to-npm",
 		"test": "node --expose-gc node_modules/nx/bin/nx run-many --all --target=test",
 		"fix-asyncify": "node packages/php-wasm/node/bin/rebuild-while-asyncify-functions-missing.mjs",
 		"typecheck": "nx run-many --all --target=typecheck",

packages/docs/site/docs/11-architecture/01-index.md

@@ -21,10 +21,32 @@ The dependencies between Playground packages and projects [are too complex](http
 
 To learn more, head over to the [NX developer docs](https://nx.dev/getting-started/intro).
 
-### Lerna: publishing packages and projects
+### Publishing packages and projects
 
 WordPress Playground includes several NPM packages, a VS Code extension, WordPress plugins, a web app, and other GitHub releases, all managed across two monorepos: the main [wordpress-playground](https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-playground) and [Playground Tools](https://github.com/WordPress/playground-tools/).
 
-We use [Lerna](https://lerna.js.org) to build, manage, and publish all JavaScript/TypeScript packages. Lerna handles everything simultaneously: it increments the version number, sets a new tag, and publishes the modified packages to `npm`.
+We use a few tools for publishing these packages:
 
-The published packages share the same version number, so when updating a single package, Lerna bumps the version number of all dependent packages.
+-   [Lerna](https://lerna.js.org) to increment packages version numbers and set git tags.
+-   npm to publish the packages to NPM.
+
+The published packages share the same version number, so when updating a single package, Lerna bumps the version number of all dependent packages. We do not use Lerna for publishing because every now and then it starts crashing with cryptic error messages and does not provide much information on what went wrong.
+
+Here are the commands you'll need to publish the packages:
+
+```bash
+## Increment the version number of the packages
+npx lerna version <major|minor|patch> --no-private --force-publish --yes
+
+## Build all the packages
+npm run build
+
+## Publish the built packages to NPM
+npm run publish-to-npm
+```
+
+Or you can do it all in one go:
+
+```bash
+npm run release:patch # or minor or major
+```

packages/meta/bin/publish-packages.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# Default value for dist-tag
+DIST_TAG=""
+
+# Parse CLI arguments
+while [[ "$#" -gt 0 ]]; do
+    case $1 in
+        --dist-tag=*) DIST_TAG="${1#*=}"; shift ;;
+        *) echo "Unknown parameter passed: $1"; exit 1 ;;
+    esac
+done
+
+# Function to check if the package.json is for a public NPM package and publish it
+publish_if_public_package() {
+    if [ -f "$1/package.json" ]; then
+        # Use Node.js to check the 'private' field in package.json
+        is_private=$(node -e "
+            const fs = require('fs');
+            const path = '$1/package.json';
+            const pkg = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(path, 'utf8'));
+            console.log(pkg.private === true ? 'true' : 'false');
+        ")
+
+        # If "private" is false, publish the package
+        if [ "$is_private" = "false" ]; then
+            echo "Publishing package in $1"
+            if [ -n "$DIST_TAG" ]; then
+                npm publish "$1" --tag "$DIST_TAG"
+            else
+                npm publish "$1"
+            fi
+        else
+            echo "$1 is marked as private. Skipping publish."
+        fi
+    else
+        echo "No package.json found in $1. Skipping."
+    fi
+}
+
+# Iterate over all directories in dist/packages/php-wasm/*
+for dir in dist/packages/php-wasm/*/; do
+    publish_if_public_package "$dir"
+done
+
+# Iterate over all directories in dist/packages/playground/*
+for dir in dist/packages/playground/*/; do
+    publish_if_public_package "$dir"
+done

packages/playground/website/package.json

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 {
+	"name": "@wp-playground/website",
 	"version": "0.0.1",
 	"type": "module",
 	"private": true