Updating the 'version' field within package.json

Question

The package.json file usually starts with name, version, scripts, dependencies. My questions is should I update the version manually , say, every time I make a release on GitHub?

While doing npm init, the version within package.json is defaulted to 0.0.0. As my app grows, should I update it evey now and then viz. 1.0.0, 2.0.1 etc.

NOTE: This is not regarding the version of different packages/dependencies but for the app itself.

Answer 1

The package version is mostly relevant when you actually publish your module on a public (or private) repository. You might also want to use it for yourself or within your company to communicate code changes in a standard way, called semantic versioning: https://semver.org/. But that's up to you.

There is even a command for that: npm version

# From 1.0.0 -> 1.0.1
npm version patch 

# From 1.0.1 -> 1.1.0
npm version minor

# From 1.1.0 -> 2.0.0
npm version major

Details: https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/version