# GitHub Packages NPM Registry outage caused by publishing spike

DevFeed: [GitHub Packages NPM Registry outage caused by publishing spike](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/incident-with-packages-76024.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/fg0pp1nl4bdg>)

Published: 2025-08-14T18:06:00Z

Content type: news

Language: en

Sources: [GitHub Status - Incident History](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/github-status-incident-history.md>)

Topics: [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident.md>), [npm](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/npm.md>), [downtime](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/downtime.md>)

Tags: [capacity](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/capacity.md>), [cause](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cause.md>), [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident.md>), [incident-response](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-response.md>), [npm](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/npm.md>), [npm-package](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/npm-package.md>)

## AI overview

On August 14, 2025, GitHub Packages' NPM Registry service was degraded for 18 minutes. Uploads were unavailable, and approximately 50% of download requests failed. GitHub attributed the incident to a publishing spike that exceeded service capacity and said it was adding traffic guardrails and improving incident response runbooks.

## Source excerpt

On August 14, 2025, between 17:50 UTC and 18:08 UTC, the Packages NPM Registry service was degraded. During this period, NPM package uploads were unavailable and approximately 50% of download requests failed. We identified the root cause as a sudden spike in Packages publishing activity that exceeded our service capacity limits. We are implementing better guardrails to protect the service against unexpected traffic surges and improving our incident response runbooks to ensure faster mitigation of similar issues.