Launcher npm publish blocked by E403, and the registry version skew means the next release silently skips it

[aayambansal]

The v1.2.4 publish run hit this and still finished green:

npm error code E403
launcher NOT published: the npm token's account is not an owner of the 'synsci' package.

The ownership grant still hasn't happened. npm owner ls synsci lists k-syntheticsciences, syntheticsciences, aayambansal; whichever account NPM_TOKEN belongs to isn't covered for the unscoped package.

There's now a second wrinkle. The launcher was published manually between releases: synsci is at 1.2.5 on the registry while @synsci/openscience latest is 1.2.4. The next patch release computes 1.2.5, and the launcher step in tooling/repo/publish.ts treats "already on the registry" as success and skips:

} else if (stderr.includes("cannot publish over") || stderr.includes("previously published")) {
  console.warn(`launcher ${Script.version} already on the registry, skipping`)
}

So the release-built 1.2.5 launcher will never ship, silently. The launcher is the npx synsci front door and #22 just changed its user-facing behavior, so a stale launcher is user-visible.

To fix:

1. An owner runs npm owner add <token-account> synsci, or the granular token gets extended to the unscoped package.
2. Make the failure visible: a ::warning::/::error:: workflow annotation at minimum, better a separate job that shows as failed or skipped instead of an all-green run.
3. A post-publish check that fails if npm view synsci version doesn't match the released version would have caught both problems.

[aayambansal]

Ownership was granted (npm owner ls synsci now lists aayambansal, the token account), so the E403 is resolved. The remaining wrinkle is the one-time version skew: synsci@1.2.5 was published out-of-band, so the next release (which will compute 1.2.5) skips the launcher publish — since #64 that skip surfaces as a workflow annotation instead of a silent green line, and it self-heals at 1.2.6. A post-publish version check remains a nice-to-have.