chore: release 9.0.0

[github-actions]

🤖 I have created a release beep boop

9.0.0 (2026-05-22)

⚠️ BREAKING CHANGES

• init-package-json now supports node ^22.22.2 || ^24.15.0 || >=26.0.0
• template-oss-apply
• The author prompt will now be shown even if an author is already specified in the existing package.json. If the user leaves the prompt blank, the author field will be omitted from the resulting package.json instead of being set to an empty string.
• existing packages in node_modules are no longer used to try to pre-populate dependencies and devDependencies
• The license field is no longer included by default when running npm init or npm init --yes. If you want to include a license, you can either set it in your npm config (npm set init-license=MIT) or provide it interactively when running npm init.

Features

• 042e1c4 #359 bump to new node engine range (@owlstronaut)
• 965f605 #359 template-oss-apply (@owlstronaut)
• 0ab701a #352 make author prompt even when already specified (@owlstronaut)
• 6e34dd8 #350 omit license field by default when initializing package.json (@owlstronaut)

Bug Fixes

• cddad4f #349 stop auto populating dependencies (fix!: stop auto populating dependencies #349) (@wraithgar)

Dependencies

• 2959f9c #359 validate-npm-package-name@8.0.0
• 96a5bb8 #359 read@6.0.0
• fefbeee #359 promzard@4.0.0
• 6114288 #359 npm-package-arg@14.0.0
• da6fbc1 #359 @npmcli/package-json@8.0.0

Chores

• 43073db #359 @npmcli/eslint-config@7.0.0 (@owlstronaut)
• 0f70db1 #359 template-oss-apply (@owlstronaut)
• 7dfdb1a #359 bumping @npmcli/template-oss from 4.30.0 to 5.1.0 (@owlstronaut)
• cc57229 #350 template-oss-apply (@owlstronaut)
• e885190 #348 bump @npmcli/template-oss from 4.29.0 to 4.30.0 (chore: bump @npmcli/template-oss from 4.29.0 to 4.30.0 #348) (@dependabot[bot], @npm-cli-bot)

---

This PR was generated with Release Please. See documentation.

[github-actions]

Release Manager

Release workflow run: https://github.com/npm/init-package-json/actions/runs/26300938511

Release Checklist for v9.0.0

• 1. Approve this PR

  gh pr review 351 -R npm/init-package-json --approve

• 2. Merge release PR 🚨 Merging this will auto publish 🚨

  gh pr merge 351 -R npm/init-package-json --squash

• 3. Check For Release Tags

  Release Please will run on the just pushed release commit and create GitHub releases and tags for each package.

  gh run watch -R npm/init-package-json $(gh run list -R npm/init-package-json --workspace release -b main -L 1 --json databaseId -q ".[0].databaseId")

[github-actions]

🤖 Created releases:

• v9.0.0

🌻

[github-actions]

Release Workflow

• init-package-json@9.0.0 https://github.com/npm/init-package-json/releases/tag/v9.0.0
• Workflow run: ✅ https://github.com/npm/init-package-json/actions/runs/26301159381